Spotlighting ‘the quiet crime’

I will admit it.

When the call came that a proclamation was to be signed in the mayor’s office designating January as Human Trafficking Awareness Month, my first thought was not positive.

“Are you kidding me?” is what I really thought.

That was before I met Tiffany Kidd from Call to Light Missions and Gia Hughes from Hope Rising Ministries, both part of the proclamation signing.

Both women are key players in Christ-centered ministries that assist victims of human trafficking in this area.

The fact that there are at least two such ministries based in this area helping victims in this very area was an eye opener.

They called human trafficking a “quiet crime” that isn’t limited to big cities. In actual fact, traffickers are attracted to areas such as ours where their activities can be kept under the radar.

Think “human trafficking” and some sort of third world country comes to mind. Or if it is in our country, it is in very large cites with populations less caring than we prefer to think we are.

We tend to visualize creepy men with faces hidden by raised trench coat collars grabbing victims and shoving them in the back of get-away cars.

But it is really a lot more subtle than that, the victim’s advocates explained. Sometimes it’s as simple as a boyfriend telling his girlfriend “Hey, I need some money, you’ll do this if you really love me.”

The internet and social media provide an open door for those with bad intentions seeking victims. It is happening across the United States and it is happening in Alabama.

Human trafficking is the second largest criminal industry in the United States, behind illegal drugs, according tohe the Alabama Human Trafficking Task Force, and can take a variety of forms to include debt bondage, forced marriage, slavery and commercial sexual exploitation.

The stretch of I-20 between Atlanta and Birmingham is known as the Sex Trafficking Superhighway, according to the human trafficking task force but the internet is a cyber-super highway.

There are red flags that professionals say indicate a person is a victim of human trafficking. They include a person’s ability to come and go as they please; fearful, anxious, depressed, submissive, tense, nervous or paranoid behavior; visible fear or anxiety at the mention of law enforcement; avoidance of eye contact or malnourished appearance; and, visible signs of physical and or sexual abuse, physical restraint or confinement.

Falling victim to human trafficking can happen to anyone, especially when the general public is not aware of what to look for—or not aware that such exists in our area.

Human trafficking is not just happening in third world countries. It is happening across the United States and it is happening in Alabama.  

Alabama has had a human trafficking law since 2010 and a Safe Harbor Act passed in 2016 to ensure that children who are victims of human trafficking are recognized as true victims—not criminals.  

Many cases go unreported due to fear of traffickers and fear of law enforcement. “Some are trapped into believing that there is no way out, that no one cares, that life is impossible,” Hughes said. “God’s Word says that’s not true, that He knew them before they were born and has great plans for them. He cares for them and loves them and so do we.”

We are blessed to have Christ-centered victim advocates among us who are willing to patiently explain some realities that we’d rather not know.

Michelle Mann is a staff writer for The Southeast Sun and Daleville Sun-Courier. The opinions of this writer are her own and not the opinion of the paper. She can be reached at (334) 393-2969 or by email at [email protected].