Sarasota, Florida, Jan. 03, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Selah Freedom, one of America’s largest anti-sex trafficking organizations, commits to raising awareness and sharing resources in January and continue throughout the year to eradicate sex trafficking in the US and become an advocate for victims of the $99 billion dollar industry.
January marks Human Trafficking Prevention Awareness Month, and it should be a time of national reflection on a pandemic that affects between 15,000 to 50,000 women, men and children who are forced into sexual slavery in the United States every year.1 The U.S. Department of State recognizes sex trafficking as a significant issue, with an estimated 27.6 million victims worldwide at any given time2. Additionally, a report from the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline indicated that 10,359 situations of human trafficking were reported in 2021, involving 16,554 individual victims3, and a 2021 Trafficking Institute report revealed that 92% of the human trafficking cases filed in the Federal Courts were for sex trafficking5. These statistics highlight the concerning prevalence of sex trafficking in the United States, but due to the rise of sex trafficking awareness, there is a growing movement in the US to build the blocks necessary to activate connections to prevent human trafficking and build individual, family, and community resilience to human trafficking., Society can take several steps to forward this effort:
- Raise Awareness: Collaborate with grantees and partners to raise awareness of human trafficking and its contributing factors in the community.
- Faith-Based Communities : Host awareness events and community forums with anti-trafficking leaders or collectively support a local victim service provider. Businesses: Provide jobs, internships, skills training, and other opportunities to trafficking survivors.
- Be well-informed. Set up a web alert to receive current human trafficking news. Also, check out CNN’s Freedom Project for more stories on the different forms of human trafficking around the world.
- Host an awareness-raising event to watch and discuss films about human trafficking. For example, learn the different ways and recruiting methods of how sex trafficking exists today; watch an investigative documentary about sex trafficking (Sound of Freedom, blockbuster 2023 movie raises awareness of sex trafficking.)
- Organize a fundraiser and donate the proceeds to an anti-trafficking organization such as Selah Freedom.
- Encourage your local schools or school district to include human trafficking in their curricula and to develop protocols for identifying and reporting a suspected case of human trafficking or responding to a potential victim. Selah Freedom provides online outreach curriculum to educate parents, caregivers and students about the ways to thwart sex trafficking.
- Youth: Learn how to recognize traffickers’ recruitment tactics , how to safely navigate out of suspicious or uncomfortable situations, and how to reach out for help at any time.
- Businesses: Provide jobs, internships, skills training, and other opportunities to trafficking survivors.
- College Students: Take action on your campus. Join or establish a university club to raise awareness about human trafficking and initiate action throughout your local community. Consider doing one of your research papers on a topic concerning human trafficking. Request that human trafficking be included in university curricula.
- Utilize Technology: Leverage technology to prevent human trafficking and online child exploitation through innovative tools and collaborations
By implementing these measures, society can work towards preventing human trafficking and enhancing the resilience of individuals, families, and communities against this crime. For more information about how you can help, visit www.SelahFreedom.com.
Source Citations:
1)https://deliverfund.org/blog/facts-about-human-trafficking-in-united-states/
2) https://www.state.gov/humantrafficking-about-human-trafficking/
3) https://polarisproject.org/myths-facts-and-statistics/
