The Kalamazoo Area Anti-Human Trafficking Coalition partnered with the YWCA to provide a training at WMU.
The biggest message was that trafficking comes in different forms and can happen right in your neighborhood.
Rita Obrien knows this all too well. "I was a kid that people thought was sleeping around and doing crazy things. But in fact I wasn't. I mean, my dad trafficked me out of my home in my own neighborhood in Kalamazoo."
Obrien, now a board member of the coalition, says trafficking doesn’t always look like a kidnapping. It starts with the trafficker building a trusting relationship with the victim.
“When a person is threatened in any kind of trafficking, whether it be labor or sex trafficking, they're going to do whatever they have to to stay alive,” she said, which is how many people get stuck.
Obrien said there are things we can watch out for before a situation escalates.
“When a child is acting out, or a teenager has got, you know, in the juvenile court system, we need to find out why they are angry, why are they self harming, there's a reason for it.” She added that educating people at an early age on human trafficking is an important key.
Like sex trafficking, labor trafficking can also happen to someone you’re close to.
According to Fanny Fernandez, the senior anti trafficking case manager at the YWCA, labor trafficking can happen in a domestic violence relationship.
“When it comes to labor trafficking, we are looking at, you know, are they being forced to do a certain job, are they being paid their hours,” she said.
Fernandez frequently handles cases that involve foreign nationals due to the language barrier. Having proper language tools and resources, she says, is critical.
It’s not always easy to prevent trafficking, but there preventative steps.
“One thing that you could look for is you know, that that individual has access to their important documents, like ID, social security card passport, that somebody else is not holding on to those for them,” Fernandez said.
If you suspect someone is being trafficked or you need help, contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888.
