Montgomery Hosts Human Trafficking Summit

If you’re not looking, human trafficking is very easy to miss.

That’s one reason why Alabama’s human trafficking task force held the “End It” summit to help spread knowledge.

“It’s hidden, like any crime. It’s not just something you can just identify really easily and say for example, one of the problems we really have is data. We don’t know how big this problem is. Even today you’ve heard statistics, this percentage, that percentage, this many thousand,” said Patrick Gage.

Gage comes from a family in the hotel industry. He says they’ve seen just how bad sex trafficking can be, and how it can hurt the kids and teenagers who are often the targets.

The national hotline received hundreds of calls from Alabama over just a four year period from 2011 to 2014.

Organizations from all over the state came to learn, including Adrian Carpenter with the Circle of Career Center for Families in Chambers County.

His group is trying to help spread some facts about the human trafficking.

“Right now we’re primarily doing trainings in the community, Rotary Clubs, Kiwanis Clubs, Lions Clubs. We’re going to talk with different groups of like law enforcement officials,” said Carpenter.

It would be easy to think your community isn’t involved in human trafficking, but Gage says the interstates running through Alabama are hotbeds of activity.

Currently the best solution is to educate yourself so you can spot the signs.

“Do not intervene on your own. Leave it to law enforcement. Putting yourself in the situation, putting yourself in a dangerous situation is not really going to help anyone. The first and in some ways the last way to do is to call law enforcement, get them involved,” said Gage.

If you think you know someone involved in human trafficking, you can also call the national hotline. That toll free number is 1-888-373-7888.