Four Tips for how YOU can stop the (local) Trafficking

Women and girls are at risk all over the world, including in your neighborhood. The rescue rate is often one rescuer for one victim. One rescuer for five victims is a good day. Here are four tips for awareness.

1. Be Observant

To end the trafficking and abuse, advocates must raise awareness of the acts of perpetrators (nice word) and know how to recognize and address local situations. A woman or child may be in a foreign country to her and with few English words. She may avoid eye contact or cover bruises on her arms or legs. She will avoid notice by law enforcement officers.

Do not approach the victim. Take note of license plate numbers or street addresses. Do not be obvious while capturing a picture or video. A regular citizen is often not equipped to act in a volatile situation with a handler who is armed and motivated to keep his victim quiet.

If you see something, say something. The Chicago Children’s Advocacy Center has a hotline for an observant resident to call when witnessing endangerment of a child.

If you suspect or know that a child (someone 17 or younger) is being trafficked, call the Illinois DCFS Child Abuse Hotline: 1-800-25-ABUSE (1-800-252-2873). If a child is in immediate danger, also call 911.

2. Donate locally

What happens to the victim after rescue? She has no support from family, no resources, no education. She often returns to prostitution because that’s all she knows. Rescue includes extended responsibility for that person, often within a network of women.

Groups in the local community are where we can see our charity dollars at work. In the Chicagoland area, please think about donating to:

Pacific Garden Missions that shelters and feeds the homeless

https://www.pgm.org

Covenant House has specialized in LGBTQ+ runaways

https://www.covenanthouse.org/homeless-shelters/chicago-illinois

Genesis House for Women and Girls that provides safe housing for victims of abuse and their children

3. Act Globally

To address root causes, we must act at the village level for the women and girls at risk. Local governments and police groups are often complicit within the network.

The Child Welfare League of America talks about Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras as the hunting grounds for abuse of women and children. Protection can come from a group of networked mothers who keep the children close, and adopt those who have lost parents, but mothers have little power in the face of armed cartels.

Think about supporting NGOs that have reputations for real work with real communities. One caution though – be certain to research the organization that solicits your charity dollar. Some groups are doing righteous work, but some are using funds to establish a presence in Washington or other political centers.

In conflict zones women and girls are more than victims. They become objects of scorn and abuse by conquering groups, and pushed into slavery. Learn more by investigating these organizations.

The Coalition for Women’s Human Rights in Conflict Situations (based in Canada) addresses the practice of using local women as instruments of war.

Educate Girls provides safe learning environments for girls around the world. And they have a great logo.

4. Be an Informed Voter

Migration flows are where organized predators grab the victims. The rush to the southern border of the USA includes high levels of organized crime for human smuggling and trafficking of orphans. Americans have ignored this invasion for too long. Cartels own property in the USA and have established armed compounds that local police are not equipped to raid.

Teresa Ulloa Ziaurriz, director of the Latin American branch of the Coalition Against Trafficking International, said she believes an estimated 60% of Latin American children smuggled across the U.S. border “have been caught by the cartels and are being abused in child pornography or for drug trafficking.” (ADV America)

The catch-and-release policy, by which the USA government accepts unaccompanied minors and connects them with family members inside the USA, is used by cartels to further enslave migrants. We must look closely at how our actions boost the human smugglers.

Human Trafficking Search

Slavery is often a tangent activity to distribution of illegal drugs into our cities and towns. Our local and federal laws are too lax for prosecution and deportation of organized abusers. Get to know your city and state government and the real actions politicians are taking for curtailing the drug traffic. Vote for strong leaders in both parties who will implement real policies that reverse our complicity in the abuse of women and children.