Local group takes on sex trafficking

Impoverished fiscally, physically or emotionally, women, men and children throughout the world and even in the commonwealth are being exploited, and the Sexual Assault Resource Agency wants to do something about it.
“You don’t think of human trafficking, and sex trafficking, as issues you’d find in Charlottesville or Virginia or even the United States, but it’s out there,” said Lindsey Holcomb, of SARA, who helped organize today’s Ending Sex Trafficking seminar. “We haven’t come across any cases here of obvious sex trafficking but you want to promote concern and make sure people are sensitive to it.”
The seminar at the Albemarle County Office Building’s Lane Auditorium begins at 10 a.m. and is aimed at emergency services providers and those in social services organizations. To that end, the program will provide information on how sex trafficking is occurring and tips for recognizing its signs.
Far fetched?
Sex trafficking may seem like a far-fetched notion to average folks, but the issue is important enough that the Department of Justice is worried about it. According to a study sponsored by the department, most of the men and women trafficked into the United States come from Central and South America and Mexico.
Another estimated 400,000 American women and girls are at risk of being trafficked right here in their own country, either as labor, in forced marriages or in the sex trade, according to the study. The majority of those at risk are between the ages of 15 and 20, the study showed.
A federal law passed in 2000 makes trafficking illegal. The law defines trafficking as obtaining a person’s service “through the use of force, fraud or coercion.” The definitions include bonded labor as trafficking, in which a person’s labor is ostensibly used to pay off a debt but where the labor never equals the debt.
Worldwide project
Members of the Polaris Project, which works worldwide to prevent human trafficking both in “indentured servitude” and in the sex industry, are presenting the program.
“We asked the Polaris Project to help us because they are the authority,” Ms. Holcomb said. “They work across the country and are international in scope as well.”
Polaris Project officials say two reasons trafficking exists are that it is profitable for those who are doing the exploiting and that the chances of getting caught are low.
“It’s a huge issue and we tend to think, ‘It’s too big. There’s nothing I can do about it.’ That’s not necessarily the case,” Ms. Holcomb said. “If we can promote the awareness of the issue and people are aware of it, it’s easier to recognize. The more we recognize it, the more we can do about it.”