Expert on human trafficking speaks at UGA
A nationally known expert on human trafficking — whether for sex, labor or other purposes — says the issue has gone from being one that attracted attention largely at the federal level to becoming a local issue affecting many communities in the nation, including Athens.
“This is a local problem,” said Laura Lederer of the Global Centurion Foundation, a Virginia-based nonprofit organization that works against human trafficking from what Lederer called “the demand side” — the people who exploit and use other human beings for everything from forced labor to commercial sex.
As human trafficking was first being recognized as an issue in this country, it mostly involved people from outside the country bringing other foreign people into the country for illicit purposes, Lederer explained. Over time, though, authorities began to see people within this country becoming involved directly in human trafficking, bringing people here to be exploited for labor, for sex, or for any of the number of other purposes, including debt bondage, recognized as human trafficking by the U.S. Department of State, Lederer said.
The internet and other forms of digital communication added yet another layer to the world of human trafficking, Lederer said.
Lederer, who has worked on the issue for years — in academia, government and now through Global Centurion — spoke at a Tuesday seminar at the University of Georgia’s Fanning Institute for Leadership Development, addressing medical professionals and others who might come into contact with victims of trafficking.
Her appearance in Athens was part of Georgia Public Service Commissioner Tim Echols’ work against trafficking, which includes helping to arrange tours of parts of Atlanta notorious for human trafficking.
Trafficking isn’t just a big-city problem, Lederer said in an interview prior to her presentation at the Fanning Institute. In fact, she said, as law-enforcement officials in larger cities crack down on trafficking offenses, that activity routinely moves to smaller nearby towns.
Athens hasn’t been immune to human trafficking, Lederer said.
“I think it’s going on in every town now,” she said.
And while she didn’t have specific statistics for Athens readily available Tuesday, Lederer did say that there have been hundreds of state- and federal-level prosecutions for human trafficking in Georgia in recent years.
According to some statistics, as many as 46.5 million people worldwide have been victimized by human trafficking, Lederer said. The State Department cites a lower figure, but still puts the number at more than 20 million, according to Lederer.
The focus on human trafficking as a local problem began about 10 years ago, Lederer said, when the federal Department of Justice contacted its U.S. attorneys’ offices around the country and asked them to bring together local police and other emergency service providers to educate them on recognizing and dealing with human trafficking.
In the intervening years, there has been “a great response” from local authorities in terms of recognizing and dealing with human trafficking on the local level, Lederer said, with those authorities exhibiting “a very quick learning curve” on the issue.
But, Lederer said, effectively addressing human trafficking on the local level means that communities must be proactive.
“Everybody has to have their antenna up,” she said.
If, however, there is one institution that could be doing more to help communities determine whether human trafficking is an issue, and to help communities address it, it is the schools.
“This is a place where I think so much more needs to be done,” she said, explaining that in addition to teaching school personnel how to recognize signs of human trafficking and reporting it to authorities, schools could educate students, in age-appropriate ways, on human trafficking to keep them on guard against it.
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