FORUM HELD TO DISCUSS HUMAN TRAFFICKING

A forum held on Sat­ur­day at Defi­ance Col­lege said thta Rural north­west Ohio is becom­ing the fastest grow­ing area for human traf­fick­ing in the state.

Appar­ently, so much empha­sis to com­bat traf­fick­ing was put on large areas like Toledo that traf­fick­ers are mov­ing to north­west Ohio where they hope they will be able to oper­ate unno­ticed.

The human traf­fick­ing forum was spon­sored by the North­west Ohio Res­cue and Restore Coali­tion, Legal Aid of West­ern Ohio Human Traf­fick­ing Pro­tec­tion Project, Fam­ily Jus­tice of North­west Ohio, Defi­ance Col­lege and Children’s Lantern.

Those who attended heard sev­eral sta­tis­tics about traf­fick­ing such as each year 100,000–300,000 U.S. chil­dren are at high risk for com­mer­cial sex exploita­tion. The aver­age entry age into pros­ti­tu­tion is 12–14.

Any­one who sus­pects traf­fick­ing is hap­pen­ing is encour­aged to call the con­fi­den­tial National Human Traf­fick­ing Resource Cen­ter toll free at 888–373-7888.