MUSKEGON, Mich. — Michigan is ranked in the top 10 states for human trafficking, and community leaders in West Michigan met Tuesday night in an effort to fight the problem.
The National Human Trafficking Hotline got more than 1,000 reports from Michigan in 2021, and more than half of them were from victims and survivors of human trafficking.
The 5th Annual Human Trafficking Forum brought together local experts in law enforcement, prosecution and social services on Jan. 31, hoping to educate the public.
"We think the community members are the eyes and ears for us. And that's really who we want to be aware of so that they can recognize the signs help identify potential victims and prevent it," Carly Campbell, co-chair of the Lakeshore Human Trafficking Task Force, says.
Human trafficking includes both forced sex acts and labor, often involving fraud and coercion, as well as any commercial sex acts of a minor.
"You might see the term on the news 'child prostitute,'" Sara Delarosa, task force member, says. "That doesn't exist. Children can't consent to sex."
The task force wants everyone to know that this is happening in the community.
"[The Hope Project has] had contact with youth from every single school, youth that were either at risk or potentially a victim of human trafficking," Campbell says.
Human trafficking doesn't often look like what we see in movies and TV shows.
"[It's] the stolen from the gas station [and] stolen from the grocery store, the social media myths that you see happening so often — while that type of thing does happen in trafficking situations, most often, that's not the case," Delarosa says. "It is somebody that the trafficker knows, or the victim knows. It's somebody that is, you know, manipulated, they are forced into the situation."
The Muskegon County Prosecutor's Office sees these cases, usually stemming from a vulnerable situation.
"Whether it's substance abuse dependence, whether it's an unstable home environment for you, that usually starts out that way, and they become dependent on other individuals to then be able to survive. And sometimes that comes at a cost to them, unfortunately," Katie Norton, Senior Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, says.
If you want to get involved with the task force, or learn more about human trafficking, you can find more information on their website.
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