For years, society knew there were people who beat their spouses. But only after someone put a name to it — “domestic violence” — did we clearly see the abuse as a crime and try to help victims in an organized way. We had a different lens through which to see it.
“Human trafficking” offers a new lens, too. It helps people look beyond misconceptions to see that people often are locked into forced labor or sexual exploitation because someone else has control of their lives. They are victims of modern-day slavery, and they need help.
FIGHT-Rowan plans to do something about that.
FIGHT stands for Free Individuals who are Gripped by Human Trafficking. Dr. Jim Duncan is leading the local effort, and not just with lip service. He and others involved in FIGHT plan to establish a safe house for adult victims in Rowan County within three years. It will be operated by an organization devoted to such work, Triad Ladder of Hope.
Duncan has successfully pulled together virtually every local organization that could possibly have an impact on trafficking victims’ lives, from law enforcement to health to Social Services and more — the public school system, Livingstone College, Hood Seminary, Catawba College, Daymark, Family Crisis Council, Prevent Child Abuse Rowan, Novant, Rufty-Holmes Senior Center and more. The movement also has prayer team leaders.
First on their agenda is raising awareness of human trafficking, a concept that seems foreign to us today. Didn’t slavery go out a long time ago? Yes, the U.S. government outlawed slavery, but an international underground market thrives on the buying and selling of people — for forced labor, prostitution, bonded labor — and it is active in the United States. In fact, the FBI ranks North Carolina as the 8th most likely state to have human trafficking because of the state’s coastline, interstate access and need for farm workers.
The circumstances under which a person can fall victim to this trade are varied. A desperate couple with no money sells a child. A young person looking for fame and fortune answers a modeling ad and gets swept into sexual exploitation far from home. People full of hope cross the border only to find themselves permanently indebted to someone who forces them to work.
The Human Trafficking Resource Center at www.polarisproject.org has more information to help identify victims and find law enforcement resources, and a hotline at 1-888-373-7888. As caring people, we can learn more about human trafficking, tune in to signs that someone may be trapped in it, and support efforts to fight this modern day scourge. If we choose to look the other way, we just make it easier for the traffickers to prey on the powerless.