(The Center Square) – While highlighting achievements and investments, the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency has been shining the spotlight on the individuals impacted by its work. This month the agency held a roundtable in Wilkes-Barre honoring Human Trafficking Awareness Month.
Each year, victims of crime in Pennsylvania receive about $13 million from the Victims Compensation Assistance Program, or VCAP, a figure that reflects about 12,000 claims. The claims help recover from lost wages, pay medical expenses, and more.
The program got an infusion of $5 million from the state’s most recent budget, bolstering funds derived from fines and penalties collected from those convicted of crimes as well as federal grants established by the Victims of Crime Act.
The roundtable highlighted the work of the NEPA Task Force Against Human Trafficking, which brings together victim services, community organizations, and law enforcement to combat the issue at the regional level.
“Many people believe, ‘human trafficking could never happen to me,’ but the reality is that it can affect anyone, anywhere,” said Kathy Buckley, Director of the Office of Victims’ Services at the commission.
According to the Counter Trafficking Data Collaborative, 41% of child trafficking cases involve family members, while an additional 25% involve intimate partners and friends, figures that fly in the face of popular misconceptions about trafficking.
Advocates say without education addressing these misconceptions within the public, traffickers can continue preying on vulnerable people undetected. NEPA’s website offers resources on where to look out for trafficking and what to look for.
“Trafficking happens every single day, and there’s no specific target for who gets trafficked. Traffickers don’t see color, gender, or age; they see vulnerability and opportunities,” said Anastasia Joy, a trafficking victim who has gone on to be an advocate for others in her position.
The commission identifies people of color and members of the LGBQT+ community as being at higher risk for being trafficked, as well as those in unstable living situations, victims of abuse, undocumented immigrants, runaways and those struggling with poverty or substance abuse.
Venues for trafficking cover a broad spectrum of public places, with the crime occurring more or less in plain sight. While sex trafficking often happens in the locations broadcasted by media – the streets, hotels, online, and at truck stops, migrant camps, and brothels – labor trafficking can occur anywhere people work, from restaurants to factories and even homes.
“Wherever there is transportation, there is the potential for trafficking,” said Deputy Secretary of Driver Vehicle Services at PennDOT Kara Templeton.
PennDOT is working with the commission in the statewide human trafficking workgroup. Much like the task force, it takes an interdisciplinary approach, which centers victim advocacy alongside law enforcement to address the problem.
The subject has been one of intense debate at the national level. The newly sworn-in Florida Senator and former attorney general, Republican Ashley Moody, took Kash Patel’s FBI director hearing as an opportunity to speak out against victim-centered approaches, advocating instead for a model that focuses on law enforcement and traffickers, sometimes referred to as a “perpetrator-centered” approach.
“The only people responsible for human trafficking are the criminals who traffic in humans, in children and exploit them, and if I’m confirmed, it will be one of my top priorities to make sure it doesn’t happen in this country,” said Patel.
Critics of perpetrator-centered approaches don’t deny wrongdoing or responsibility on the part of human traffickers, but they do consider a wide variety of socioeconomic factors that create the conditions for trafficking. Additionally, a victim-centered approach takes into account the risks inherent to victims coming forward, such as retaliation by their abusers or even being charged themselves for crimes like prostitution they committed under coercion.
“Traffickers thrive when systems do not work together. The most important work of the NEPA Task Force is collaboration,” said Suzanne Beck, Co-chair of the NEPA Task Force Against Human Trafficking and Chief Executive Officer of the Victim Resource Center. “Responses to human trafficking are most effective and efficient when they are multidisciplinary and collaborative in their problem solving.”
For Joy, victims themselves are an essential part of that collaboration.
“I believe it’s crucial to have survivors involved in discussions like the one we had today to provide insight and commentary on real-life experiences,” said Joy. “That’s what I strive to do: give hope to those who don’t have it, show them it’s possible to get out and live a successful life, and help protect those who have never been trafficked by teaching them what signs to look out for.”