SACRAMENTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--On the same day that thousands gathered to stand up against human trafficking at the 3Strands Global Break Free Run, Governor Brown took action to protect California’s youth by requiring public schools to offer education and training on human trafficking identification and prevention. Introduced by Assemblyman Bonta (D-18) and sponsored by 3Strands Global Foundation, AB 1227 went through the legislative process without a single “no” vote.
According to Assemblyman Bonta, “It is necessary for counties to implement comprehensive prevention education and training procedures in order to reduce incidents of human trafficking. Training teachers and administrators about the signs of human trafficking and their county's response protocol can help provide the tools necessary to identify when a child is at risk of being trafficked and connect them with the services they need.”
Supervising Deputy Attorney General Maggy Krell states, “Our youngest residents are often our most vulnerable. This bill arms our educators with the tools they need to counteract that vulnerability... we need to give them a chance at the front end.”
Since 2011, 3Strands Global Foundation has educated over 26,000 California students about how to prevent being exploited for labor and sex. Through a partnership with Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives, Love Never Fails, the California Department of Education, and the Office of the California Attorney General, 3Strands Global Foundation co-founded PROTECT in 2015, an anti-human trafficking training and curriculum currently being implemented in 17 California counties. PROTECT has also partnered with Cisco for the core Learning Management System technology and The Institute for Social Research at CSU Sacramento, to provide program metrics and analytics.
The importance of this law is illustrated by some recent human trafficking statistics:
- In 2016, there were 40 million victims of modern slavery worldwide (ILO, 2017).
- 1 in 6 of the runaways reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 2016 were likely victims of child sex trafficking. Of those, 86% were in the care of social services when they went missing.
- California has the highest amount of human trafficking cases reported to the National Human Trafficking Hotline.
Ashlie Bryant, President and Co-Founder of 3Strands Global Foundation, states the vitality of AB 1227: “We are profoundly grateful that Governor Brown stood with us to make sure that California has the opportunity to truly stop the exploitation of our children and be both a national and global leader in the fight against human trafficking.”
ABOUT 3STRANDS GLOBAL FOUNDATION:
3Strands Global Foundation is a California-based non-profit with the mission to mobilize communities to combat human trafficking through prevention education programs in schools and reintegration job programs for survivors.
Learn more about 3Strands Global Foundation: www.3sgf.org
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