Letters: January is Human Trafficking Awareness Month

As January is Human Trafficking Awareness Month, one might ask, “exactly what is human trafficking?”

Human trafficking is defined as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons by means of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, for the purpose of exploitation. Sex trafficking is defined as a commercial sex act that is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age. Of particular note is the automatic classification of trafficking in children under 18 years of age.

When thinking of human trafficking, people often think about young girls from overseas being brought to western countries against their will. But did you know that trafficking occurs within the United States borders as well? Statistics are hard to come by, as there is not one singular agency collecting trafficking data. Even the 2017 report from the International Labor Organization, often considered the most reliable source for statistics, is not without its own flaws. It states that 24.9 million is an estimate of the number of people on a given day who are engaged in forced labor. So, this reliable source is still only using an estimate. It just proves how difficult it is to obtain reliable statistics. We do know that, within the U.S., trafficking occurs in every socio-economic status. It happens in big cities, as well as in small towns such as South Lake Tahoe. In fact, Sacramento is a major hub of freeways, and Highway 50 crosses shortly into Nevada. Freeway hubs like this are a natural facilitator of trafficking.

How do we know it is occurring here in South Lake Tahoe? Because of feedback from educators who taught human trafficking awareness to the ninth graders for the last three years. PATH (Partners Against the Trafficking of Humans) is a local coalition that started as an offshoot of the Soroptimists’ International of South Lake Tahoe. Our Steering Committee has arranged for 3Strands Global (an El Dorado Hills-based anti-trafficking organization) to teach the ninth graders at STHS about human trafficking. After their presentations, they reported about several students who came forward to share situations they were in, that were possibly human trafficking situations.

Within the U.S., oftentimes a guy in his 20’s or 30’s will become the “boyfriend” or “Romeo” of a 14-17 year old girl and lure her into “the life”. Once brought into the trafficking situation, it is very hard for the girl to get out on her own. Sometimes a child’s parents may traffic the child for drug money. In essence, there are innumerable ways that someone can fall victim to human trafficking.

PATH’s mission is to increase community knowledge of human trafficking through awareness, prevention and education. That is why our goal for 2019 is to expand a program called PROTECT beyond the minimum required by law, into the schools. This program starts in an age-appropriate way to teach 5th, 7th, 9th, and 11th grades about human trafficking. We will be approaching the LTUSD to make this happen. We will be also working with the new Human Trafficking Coordinator at Live Violence Free to support her in gathering statistics for human trafficking cases in our town. Please check out the PATH website at www.PATHSouthTahoe.org for more information about human trafficking. In it, you will also find articles about actual trafficking arrests and convictions, as well as resources to learn more on the topic. The more educated our community becomes about human trafficking, the better we can prevent it from happening here.

- Alysone Hussmann