The Commission on the Status of Women is partnering with Mid-America Technology Center to host a Community Conversation to Stop Human Trafficking. The event is scheduled for Friday, March 29, 2024. Two sessions will be held. One is at 10 a.m. and the second is at 1 p.m. in the Seminar Center in the Health Building, 27438 Highway 59, Wayne. The event is free and open to the public.
Each year, an estimated 4,000 Oklahomans seek help from human trafficking situations. The Oklahoma Commission on the Status of Women launched two educational initiatives to stop-human trafficking educational efforts — a series of Community Conversations to Stop Human Trafficking at schools and a Not Me, Not My Community initiative.
“Human trafficking is modern-day slavery,” said Commission State Chair Brenda Jones Barwick. “It’s a $150 billion a year industry, and Oklahoma is not immune to it. Most human trafficking in Oklahoma is not happening by people passing through on highways, but by members in their circle of trust, such as family members, friends, or acquaintances, who entrap them into involuntary servitude through labor, sex, or drugs.”
The series of Community Conversations to Stop Human Trafficking are held at high schools, colleges, and universities statewide to educate Oklahoma teens, young adults, teachers, and parents on how to recognize early signs of a person being targeted for human trafficking servitude.
A panel of Oklahoma professionals and experts will provide a full spectrum of several aspects of human trafficking in Oklahoma. Panelists include non-profit organizations that are providing healing and recovery services and resources to people entrapped into human trafficking. The discussion will highlight tribal and ethnic groups whose populations have experienced a high level of people forced into involuntary slavery; and law enforcement and drug interdiction officers who have been trained to recognize the signs of a bondage situation.
