HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Human trafficking has become a serious problem in the U.S. "Human trafficking is modern day slavery," Bo Williams with the North Albama Human Trafficking Task Force shares. That's exactly what it is. It's holding people against their will, making them perform sex acts against their will, making them perform labor, acts against their will with force, fraud or coercion. Those are the three things that we see. and there can be more than one for a specific victim."
During Human Trafficking Awareness Month, local organizations AshaKiran and the North Alabama Human Trafficking Task Force are helping the community better understand the many ways trafficking can happen. "The two biggest threats of human trafficking in this area are trafficking by a member of their own family where, you know, an aunt or an uncle or even one of the child's parents can contract, trafficked them for drug money for example," Williams shares. "Selling sexual access to a child is trafficking. whether they move them or not."
Kamilah Torres, Development Director with AshaKiran shares foreign born victims have become common targets. "Given the population that we serve, which is generally the foreign born and culturally diverse, we find that those are people that are that can become victims of human trafficking quite easily," Torres shares. "Because a lot of times they are kind of enticed with the idea of coming to the United States or getting a certain type of work only to get to wherever that destination is and realize that they've been labor trafficked essentially."
The internet has a big role to play. "The internet is terrible for human trafficking because what the internet does, you can be anybody you want on the internet," Williams shares. "So, if there's a young person who is shared a little too much about themselves and I'm a trafficker and I'm looking for somebody to groom and perhaps pick up to traffic them, I can pretend to be their peer."
One important note both groups stressed is that all victims aren’t young. "Human trafficking runs the spectrum," Torres shares. "It could be males, females, children sometimes even elderly."
Williams adds. "Anybody can be a victim. It is true that most sex trafficking victims are female, but there are also male sex trafficking victims, gay sex trafficking victims, LGBTIQQ plus sex trafficking victims of any kind are possibilities."
Both groups are urging if you see something, say something. "We absolutely try to make sure that people understand that any call that we receive is confidential," Torres shares. "We don't share that information with absolutely anyone. Obviously, if we need to share it with law enforcement or those types of entities, we explain the reason why and we also offer the language services."
"We ask people if anything that doesn't feel right, it doesn't feel like this person may be in control of their situation, we ask people to go ahead and contact law enforcement," Williams shares. "If you're wrong, it's just a momentary moment of embarrassment, but if you're right, you might have saved that person's life."