This past Wednesday, the Poly community had the pleasure of listening to Sarah Ryan and her panel of experts. Focusing primarily on the widespread human trafficking issue both locally and in the wider national and international community, Alexandra Badie, Sergeant Jeffrey Walker, and Brandon Cox all spoke at great length about the importance of confronting human trafficking.
Ms. Badie, International Sanctuary representative, was able to speak to human trafficking from the point of empowering girls and women. Sergeant Walker has, member of the LA County Sheriff department since the early 90s, was especially knowledgeable about the profiling of victims and perpetrators of human trafficking. Lastly, Mr. Cox is the head of a non profit in Missouri, Oasis Refuge, that helps to refuge female teens who have undergone sex trafficking.
These three very knowledgeable panelists put forth a variety of ideas and information. Firstly, they discussed the lack of awareness around human trafficking- noting that the United States simply isn't as invested as it should be. They referred to the latter before noting that the rate of human trafficking is growing at a very high rate. The panelists also spoke of the complexity of human trafficking, attributing the latter to one of the reasons for its huge prevalence. Specifically, Sergeant Walker noted that it was very hard to discern whether a person was being trafficked because they almost never self identify due to fear of probable repercussions.
Shifting to the impact of Coronavirus on human trafficking, it was clear that the effect was harsh. Sgt. Walker noted that his task force was limited due to the defunding and Cox highlighted that the amount of cases he was getting was lower because reporting was no longer as prevalent due to the distancing measures caused by the pandemic. Badie also was able to note that the international realm of human trafficking had sky rocketed as a result of more joblessness- the ultimate enabling factor.
Sarah Ryan processed the information efficiently and asked very meaningful questions of her distinguished guest speakers. I appreciated the precision and sincerity of the speakers as well as their drive to put an end to human trafficking. I found the content of this Capstone very concerning, but very informative. I did not know that much about human trafficking before this event, and I look forward to learning more.