>> As Miami is preparing to welcome swarms of Super Bowl fans in about a week and a half
federal agents are on high
alert across South Florida and
they’re looking for signs of
human trafficking. According to
the National human trafficking
hotline Florida is
ranked 3rd for the highest
reported cases and there is a
spike during major sporting
event. It’s not just limited
though to South Florida.
According to Jacksonville.
Police there were 34 human
trafficking related arrests and
3 federal indictments. Last
year alone. Kelly Posey is the
program director for a local
organization which helps human
trafficking victims.
It’s called her song good
morning Kelly, thank you for
being here appreciate it or for
those who
maybe have don’t know a lot
about human trafficking even
though we know that here in
Jacksonville, the city of
Jackson was really and declared
this month human trafficking
awareness. Can you explain to
our viewer what it is and it’s
not necessarily what we see
on TV. Well human trafficking
is modern-day slavery.
>> And so we see um you know
a disconnect between I think
the perception of the public
and the reality in terms of
our victims. Very often it is a
power and control
issue. So we we continue to
force fraud and coercion one of
the components of human
trafficking but beyond that
it’s a great driven industry.
It’s a market as supply
and demand and so I’m most of
the traffickers that we see it
are in it for money.
>> And it’s it’s prostituting a
a child an adult men women
and children family members.
All of that. Yes all of the
above.
What is her song do to help
with this.
>> At her song we are
interrupting the cycle of human
trafficking and we do that in 3
ways we’d buy provide survivor
care and that looks like
presidential programming is we
have 2 safe houses here in
Jacksonville. Both with
intensive recovery
one of those is a transition
House and one is for women that
are just beginning to take
those next steps
and with that because I’m
starting to read to the but is
that because oftentimes the
reason that these.
>> Women who might be in a
position to to ask for help
from an outside agency or
person like a police officer
and not doing that because they
feel like they don’t have any
place to go to be safe.
Very often.
>> Especially the women that we
work with they have no hope
they have limited options
and so we are there to help
them
begin to expand and explore
those options to see the next
steps and to be able to move in
that direction.
>> And then how else does her
son help. We are involved in
victim outreach in the
community as well we’re in the
jails every week conducting a
post traumatic growth.
>> And
empowerment programs. We
provide again after care and
advocacy for women who are
coming out of
the life. We also have an
education and awareness
component of our program
and this is it an exciting and
recent development, the state
Board of Education in Florida
has mandated that every student
every grade
every year will receive
prevention human trafficking
prevention and education.
And so
we are partnered with of
Florida State Department of ad
as well as our local
school district to be a liaison
for that curriculum
as well as providing training
for their administration so
parents who may be hearing this
are thinking wait a minute I
need to worry about this with
my child how does that how is
human trafficking involves
specifically with teenagers.
>> Has it become we we
see first entry into
trafficking is typically in the
early teens, somewhere between
1214 years of age in Florida.
>> It is 14.1
years of age and just
Florida alone this year we’ve
had 2200 cases that have been
reported for minors.
So over 300 of those are in
northeast Florida. So it’s a
very real problem for our
young people and I think you
know the opportunity for us to
be able to shape culture in
thinking in this respect is
an
opportunity will leave a legacy
for generations. I think
way to influence and impact
cultural thinking and to begin
to shift some of those paradigm
girls are basically being
recruited they think that maybe
they’ve met a nice person a
nice boy a nice man.
>> And as a result, the end up
just going down this just
terrible terrible tragedy of of
being in essence prostituted
out for.
Kelly thank you for being here
appreciate such an important
conversation so important in
fact we’re going to continue it
tomorrow first though I you
know if it to report human
trafficking I want to give you
a couple of numbers here you
can call the Northeast Florida,
human trafficking coalition by
dialing 8, 8, 8, re 7, 3,
7, 8, 8, It also
text help to be free that the E
F r e e.
>> And if you’re survivor just
need the services,
you know that her song you
offers you can call by dialing
5, 1, 3, 0, 2,
0, 3, and we’ll put all this by
the way included in this
interview on our website news 4
Jax dot com. And tomorrow, I’m
going to sit down with a
someone who has lived through
this. A victim of human
trafficking. She will join us
tomorrow in the 7 o’clock
our to talk a little certainly
about the traumatic ordeal, but