Human Trafficking Awareness Day: Success Through Collaboration

Yesterday was National Human Trafficking Awareness Day and I was fortunate to spend my day surrounded by professionals committed to ending slavery! 

The Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Office for Victims of Crime, who fund forty anti-trafficking task forces throughout the United States and Saipan, in 2009 developed a plan to conduct regional training forums to bring together task force representatives from geographical regions to share criminal intelligence, current case trends, best practices for task force operations and, most importantly, identification and care of trafficking victims.  By coincidence, January 11th and 12th were chosen as the meeting dates for over a dozen task forces from the western United States (Alaska, Hawaii, California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado) and the Northern Mariana Islands (Saipan) to gather in San Jose.  I was surrounded by almost 150 professionals from local and Federal agencies involved in anti-trafficking operations. 

Over the two days we looked at various trafficking trends, shared our experiences and knowledge, and had detailed presentations on recent domestic servitude and commercial sex trafficking cases in the region.  It was an excellent two days...

Read the full article

Source: John Vanek

<<   Back to News