Through nationwide fundraising campaigns, the creation of several documentary films and the support of high-powered celebrities—including Oprah and Regis and Kelly—Tiny Stars hopes to train American citizens in how to identify victims and blow the whistle on their abusers.

One of Tiny Stars’ primary efforts is to train local law enforcement officials who, Collins says, don’t always know what to look for. “They’ll bust a huge ring of prostitutes and find a bunch of kids in the back room and think, ‘Oh these must be the kids of the prostitutes,’ and send them off to foster homes,” says Collins. “But really they are victims, too, who haven’t been identified.”

Tiny Stars is also working to educate people in other professions who have access to houses and buildings where trafficking might be taking place, such as zoning department employees, cable television workers, animal control officers, etc. “We need people out there who know how to identify victims,” says Collins, “because if we don’t, the fighting will stop and people will think the victims aren’t there.”

But it is a frustrating process, Collins says, because there are still organizations that don’t believe that these crimes are taking place on American soil. “We had a Queens, New York-based civic group that had scheduled us to speak, but they cancelled at the last minute saying that they were really trying to focus only on local issues,” says Collins. “Not long after, a brothel was busted on their street. It had tons of 12-year-old girls from Guatemala.”

What is further frustrating is that Tiny Stars does not receive funding from federal agencies, because most cases of prostitution are not investigated because they are considered misdemeanors. More often than not, Collins says, where there is adult prostitution there are child prostitutes there as well. But due to lack of knowledge and proper funding, not enough is being done.