10 Ways to Help Combat Human Trafficking

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter” and those words could not be more true.

Anyone can join in the fight against human trafficking. Human trafficking is one of the largest and fastest growing organized crime in the world second only to the Drug Trade, and the longer we ignore this terrifying fact, the more victims of this horrific crime will turn up.

Global sex trafficking has become a HUGE problem. Literally, according to the website www.fightingthenewdrug.org, it’s estimate that 4.5 million people around the world are coerced in the sex traffic trade every year as part of an astronomically huge $32 billion dollar industry.

Fortunately, there are an array of great organizations around the world devoted to fight trafficking, but there’s still so much more we all can be doing, and oftentimes many of us are asking, ” What I can go.”

We’re glad you asked, because there’s a lot more we can be doing collectively.

Here are some ways we can help fight human trafficking.

Learn the Indicators of Human Trafficking and refuse to contribute to the sexual exploitation with views or money. I’m referring to the porn industry which has been linked to inescapably to sex trafficking. The porn industry has been heavily connected in involvement in sex and human trafficking for decades and it normalizes the actions victims of trafficking are forced into. It also desensitizes victims of sex traffickers. Furthermore, by clicking, downloading and consuming videos and images, it only sends the message that we accept sexual entertainment at the expense of sexual exploitation.
Be Aware: If you see someone you think might be a victim of human trafficking, you need to take action immediately. You simply cannot turn your back on this situation or the individual involved in it. Call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888. Another thing you can do is to take pictures of hotel rooms you stay at. Oftentimes, trafficking happens in hotel rooms so by taking photos it helps capture certain details of that room such as carpet patterns, furniture and wallpaper that might later help identify the room in which the picture was taken and the crime committed. It can go a long way to help end trafficking. This website (https://traffickcam.com/) helps combat trafficking by allowing a place to upload photos of hotel rooms.
Volunteer and Support Anti-Trafficking Efforts in your Community: Learn more about how you can better help and support sex trafficking in your own community. Trafficking is an issue in large and small communities and everything in between, so there are resources designed and created locally to help combat the trafficking. You’ll just have to do a bit of digging, but it’ll be worth it once you see the impact of the efforts and resources you’re contributing to the cause.
Be well-informed: Set up web alerts to receive current human trafficking news. Try to stay abreast on news related to human trafficking, so you can stay informed in your own community, but this also ensures you’re helping your own family and friends to remain safe and informed.
Organize a fundraiser and donate proceeds to an anti-trafficking organization. This is another awesome way to get involved. You can organize a fundraiser on a local and small scale or decide to take it on at a national level, but again the resources raised will help go a long way in efforts devoted to ending trafficking.
Encourage your local schools and school districts to include human trafficking curriculum and to also develop protocols for identifying and reporting suspected cases of human trafficking. Personally, I want individuals to understand what they should do if there were to come upon a Human Trafficking Victim, and also share with my children what it is in general so they can avoid situations that might put them in similar, scary and unimaginable situations. We our children this information, and we shouldn’t sugar coat it because it’s a topic that is uncomfortable to talk about.
Utilize your own personal social media platforms to raise awareness about human trafficking using certain hashtags, like #endtrafficking and/or #freedomfirst. Follow Human Trafficking sites that share useful and important information and share that information to help spread the word. By sharing information, you’re potentially helping save someone from this horrific path in trafficking.
Become a mentor to a young person or someone in need. It’s been widely speculated and supported that traffickers target individuals who are going through difficult times because they tend to be more vulnerable. They’re not as cautious, so they’re not as aware of their surroundings or consider that they might be a target. Seek out those individuals who have a weak support system and try to be a positive influence for them.
Parents and caregivers need to learn how traffickers target, recruit and groom young people. By hosting conversations in your local communities through neighborhood associations, teacher associations, law, school or other associations in general where you can use your voice to help spread the world about human trafficking, you’re able to help keep youths out of potentially dangerous situations. Teach them who they should turn too and share with them all of the resources available to them. If we start with our youth, we can potentially slow the numbers of trafficking.
Meet with and/or write to local, state and federal governments and request information on how they are combating human trafficking. Push for change, and then get involved. If you feel that your local, state or federal government isn’t doing enough, it’s ok to push for more change, more rules and regulations that help protect our youth and older generations as well who are more likely to become victims of human trafficking.

We need to be comfortable having uncomfortable conversations if we expect real change. Collectively, we must be working together towards the common goal of ending human trafficking. We need to get governments and officials at all levels involved as well as being responsible on our own end. Human trafficking isn’t going away anytime soon, unfortunately, so the sooner we take real, hard action, the quicker we can slow it and ultimately end it.

In the words of the wise Mahatma Gandhi: