The Capital District Transportation Authority is teaming up with a national nonprofit to fight child sex trafficking.
CDTA and Protect All Children from Traffickingare partnering to educate bus operators and customers about how to identify and report sex trafficking without putting yourself in danger.
The Transit Against Child Trafficking campaign is launching through a partnership with CDTA and Rio Metro Regional Transit District in New Mexico’s Albuquerque/Santa Fe region.
The campaign will use social media, emails, and signage to raise awareness, according to Emily DeVito, CDTA’s Communication Manager. DeVito says drivers will also be educated on the signs of human trafficking. DeVito says CDTA is still working on the best way to implement the training, but she says the team knows its importance.
“Many of our customers, they might want to help, but they simply don't know how or what to look for. So, when it comes to reporting, the riders, our customers, they should obviously never directly intervene, just because you don't know what the situation could bring,” she said.
According to humantraffickinghotline.org, in 2021, New York was fourth in the nation for the number of reported human trafficking incidents with more than 1,600 cases, behind Florida, Texas, and California.
Regionally, only a fraction of reported cases in the Northeast are resolved.
David Guinn is a public service professor at Rockefeller College in Albany. Guinn says it’s hard to accurately measure how many people are trafficked because traffickers use legal and illegal migration to exploit others.
“There are a lot of different ways that people get into trafficking, runaway children, most of the time, they're running away from abusive families, a bad family situation, they flee and end up in an urban area, where they then get preyed upon by somebody who recognizes them, recruits them, and kind of beats them into submission to become a prostitute,” Guinn said. “Internationally, a lot of people get into the trafficking pipeline, because they're looking for economic advancement, they’re either fleeing a place with extreme poverty, or gang violence, or family violence in their situation.”
PACT CEO Lori L. Cohen says human trafficking is not like what you see on TV.
“People, when they come in contact with it, don't always know what it looks like,” Cohen said. “And honestly, there are many victims, I would say most victims, don't know they're being trafficked while they're being trafficked. And recognition is so important to identification.”
According to Cohen, PACT uses a survivor’s counsel to more accurately depict what human and sex trafficking looks like.
“We asked them, ‘When you were on a bus, what would you have liked someone to see?’ And one survivor said, ‘I never made eye contact, I was always looking at the ground. I was a teenager, normally teenagers like to look out the window. Normally, teenagers want to chat with other people. I wasn't looking at anyone. And I didn't want anyone to look at me.’ And it was really interesting, because I hadn't actually seen posters that talks about the fact that survivors were afraid to make eye contact,” Cohen said.
Cohen says PACT chose CDTA over other large transportation authorities because of its strong leadership and willingness to help others.
Cohen adds people shouldn’t be afraid to report something that seems odd, saying there’s no downside in reporting something suspicious.
“It's important to emphasize that you don't have to be a superhero to help disrupt trafficking,” Cohen said. “Every single one of us can play a role in stopping it. What's necessary is the willingness to look around to notice if something unusual seems to be happening to a young person.”
The Human Trafficking Hotline is 1-888-373-7888, or text “help” to 233-733.
