Non-profits provide support for ‘Human Trafficking Awareness Day’
Love's Arm Outreach and Selah Freedom
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) — Millions are affected by human trafficking across the world.
National Human Trafficking Awareness Day is acknowledged each year on January 11.
Both locally and nationally, people are expressing their thoughts and concern for those who have been affected by human trafficking.
Love’s Arm and Selah Freedom are two organizations working at bringing awareness to this issue.
“It could happen to anybody. At any time,” Love’s Arm Outreach, Executive Director Inza Haggins-Dyer said.
Over 50,000 signals were sent to the National Human Trafficking Hotline in the last few years.
According to these numbers, Tennessee and Georgia make up at least 1,500 of these calls.
A common denominator of many of these victims are said to have a history of early childhood abuse.
In Tennessee, the average age of people who are trafficked are females between 11 and 15 years old.
“It could happen to anybody. But we have to remain vigilant, we have to protect our children in particular. And we have to realize that when you hear someone in those circumstances, the question is to ask is not ‘Why are they doing this?’ “Why don’t they make better choices?’ Or whatever… The question to ask is ‘What happened to them?’ When you ask that question and open up that conversation, you learn a lot,” Haggins-Dyer said.
Love’s Arm has supported many men and women in the greater Chattanooga community who have been affected by sex trafficking.
“We provide love, advocacy, and support for primarily female survivors of trafficking– all forms of commercial sexual exploitation and addiction in Chattanooga and surrounding areas,” Haggins-Dyer said.
Selah Freedom, an anti-human trafficking non-profit based out of Florida and the Midwest, also brought light to this national issue.
Co-Founder of Selah Freedom, Director of Consulting, Laurie Swink said, “People will say, well it’s not happening here. We have a small town. Everything’s fine here. I would say I would challenge that, because anywhere that you have internet, you have predators that are out there trying to reach your children. Trying to reach vulnerable people. You know they’re not always children. They’re adults too… Recognizing when you see something that you feel like is a red flag, it’s always better to report it… and be wrong. Then to not report it and to have been right.”
Over 54 million people are affected by human trafficking– both labor and sex trafficking.
The industry is tied as the second largest criminal enterprise worldwide for $99 billion.
“It does happen here in the United States. I think when I first started learning about it, I thought it was just in other countries. Then going to conferences, going to training, and reading more about it, I realized ‘Oh my goodness I’ve grown up with it.’ It literally was in my own backyard and I didn’t even realize what was happening,” Swink said.
The non-profit provides five strong programs for individuals affected by human trafficking: Awareness, Prevention, Outreach, Residential and Consulting.
For additional resources in Chattanooga and across the U.S., visit the links below.
