Human Trafficking
Dear Editor: January is National Human Trafficking Prevention month. The U.S. Department of Justice defines human trafficking as “a crime that involves compelling or coercing a person to provide labor or services, or to engage in commercial sex acts. The coercion can be subtle or overt, physical or psychological. Exploitation of a minor for commercial sex is human trafficking, regardless of whether any form of force, fraud, or coercion was used.”
Alaska has a human trafficking problem. Erin Terry, FBI victim specialist in Anchorage, spoke at the Human Trafficking Conference in Sitka last October. She states, “The general rule of thumb in Alaska is, if your community has a drug problem, you also have a trafficking problem.”
This Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., we will be at Sea Mart with human trafficking information, free posters about human trafficking, and STOP Human Trafficking T-shirts ($20 each).
Let’s educate ourselves and work together towards eradicating human trafficking!
Dug and Susan Jensen
Kathie Johnson, Kathy Newman
Gary and Coke Oines
Marjorie Parmelee, Mary Stevens
Donna Callistini, Lori Kramer
Alene Henning
