In the Wednesday, Jan. 17, edition of the Butler Eagle, we learned about the Salvation Army’s Leading Individuals Gracefully out of Human Trafficking, which served 65 people in Western Pennsylvania last year.

Programs like the LIGHT Project are hugely important, both because they help support survivors of human trafficking and because they help spread awareness of the problem and how to help.

Human trafficking happens when a person uses force or coercion to make another person engage in commercial sex acts or in involuntary labor. And it is a massive problem worldwide.

A September 2022 report on Global Estimates of Modern Slavery put forth a figure of 27.6 million people in some kind of forced labor. That broke down to about 17.3 million forced to work, 6.3 million forced into commercial sex work and 3.9 million forced to work by a government.

In the United States, the problem continues to plague law enforcement. In 2021, there were 1,672 people prosecuted for human trafficking. That’s more than twice as many as in 2011, when 729 people were charged.

Many people think of human trafficking as a primarily urban issue, but it exists everywhere in the world. Sex trafficking and labor trafficking are both prevalent in the region, with 37 of the people the Salvation Army served survivors of sex trafficking, 27 survivors of labor trafficking and one a survivor of both.

Tabitha Ceryak, director of the LIGHT Project, pointed out that rural areas are often locations for labor trafficking.

“Many of the labor traffic survivors that we serve live in rural areas,” Ceryak stated. “Rural areas have farming industries, and this is an area that we see labor trafficking occur.”

An increase in enforcement and awareness is one reason for the increase in arrests, and nearly everyone can help fight trafficking.

One resource is the National Human Trafficking Hotline. People can contact the hotline to report a tip to law enforcement, request resources or training, or ask for assistance as a survivor.

For the hotline, call 1-888-373-7888, text “befree” (233733) or visit humantraffickinghotline.org.

Survivors can contact the LIGHT Project by phone directly 24/7 at 412-999-1197 or by visiting the online referral form at salvationarmywpa.org/lightproject.

— JK