Volunteers educate on signs of human trafficking via Not In My City campaign

By PAMELA GRANT
Cove Leader-Press

According to unboundnow.org, in the United States alone, as many as 300,000 children are at risk of being commercially exploited in sex slavery each year.

The month of January is Human Trafficking Awareness month, and local citizens and volunteers did their part Saturday to help spread awareness about human trafficking and to do their part to help keep it out of our city.

Volunteers gathered at the Copperas Cove Police Department to participate in the “Not In My City” campaign where they learned a little bit about what human trafficking is and received educational material and flyers to pass out to Copperas Cove businesses. Volunteers then dispersed going from business to business to hang up as many flyers as they could.

Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery and is defined as the trade of humans using force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of forced labor, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others.

Central Texas Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Round Table and the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) teamed up with local volunteers from the Aglow Copperas Cove Lighthouse, Five Hills Royalty, and more.

“We want to bring awareness to the businesses and then eventually to the customers of Copperas Cove,” said Gerlinde Green, a volunteer with Aglow. “It’s not only going on in the big cities…it’s happening right here.”

Green suggested a few ways for people to be on the lookout for signs that something suspicious might be happening and warned that human trafficking can happen anywhere.

Some signs include an unusually large amount of traffic, cars parked at odd hours, and/or someone suddenly becoming a big spender. She warned parents to make sure that they know where their kids are. A big thing is making sure that everyone keeps each other accountable.

“See something. Say something,” said Gary Kafer, district director for Rep. J. D. Sheffield who attended on Saturday morning.

“We have a concern and want to help prevent human trafficking. This is a good opportunity to do something about it,” said Mark Kemp who volunteered alongside his wife, Annette Kemp.

Teams consisted of at least two people, one of which had to be an adult who could drive. Each team was given a map and a list of local businesses to speak with.

“Human trafficking has no boundaries of age, gender, race, anything like that. It can happen to anybody and me being able to be a part of stopping it is very important to me,” said Five Hills Ambassador Emily Kimball.

Kimball and other members of the Five Hills Royalty were successful in hanging up several of the posters in local businesses.

“A lot of them are very understanding of the problem and immediately let us hang up the poster,” said Kimball.

In addition to putting up the flyers, local businesses were also able to request training on what human trafficking is and how to be more aware of it.

Local businesses looking to get a flyer for their store or looking for more information can contact DSHS at (254) 547-8383.