By Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton
Human trafficking is slavery. It is the exploitation of human beings for involuntary sex or labor. In robbing its victims of their liberty and autonomy, it is as morally repugnant as slavery in any other form. It treats human beings as commodities to be bought and sold.
While its vileness places human trafficking on the level of slavery, it presents a unique set of challenges. It is a crime that remains hidden, with victims trapped in a spiraling cycle of brutality, abuse and repression, unless and until someone helps to rescue them.
In theory, virtually everyone agrees that human trafficking is wrong, and that it is a serious and growing problem. In practice, however, many of us also assume that it is someone else’s concern, that it happens far away, and that we need not worry about it happening in our communities.
Sadly, that’s simply not the case. Human trafficking is a national problem and nowhere is spared. Texas ranks second in the nation in total calls to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline. Recent research indicates that at any given time there are 313,000 victims of human trafficking living in our state. It is happening in our neighborhoods and schools, in strip malls and on farms, in wealthy areas as well as destitute localities; it is happening to people across races, old and young, male and female. Human traffickers do not discriminate; the only things they need are vulnerable targets and silent neighbors.
That’s why education is so vital. A crime hidden in plain sight demands a spotlight to expose its horrors. People need to be informed what human trafficking is (including the many forms it can take), that it is far more ubiquitous than they may realize, and what it does to victims. Even more importantly, they need to learn how to detect it. Only then will our instinctive revulsion be mobilized into a practical, statewide fight capable of ending the trade in human persons.
Recently, the Office of the Attorney General debuted its new comprehensive human trafficking training video to educate Texans about this heinous crime. It is designed as a tool for state employees — as well as the wider citizenry of Texas — to learn what constitutes human trafficking and how to spot warning signs. The screening is free and open to the public.
“Be the One” shares the stories of human trafficking from the perspective of victims and good Samaritans who saw something and said something. The video is mandatory viewing for all employees in my office, I am challenging my counterparts in other Texas state agencies to do the same. I applaud the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services for being the first state agency to use the video in the training of all 8,000 of its front-line caseworkers.
This powerful tool is available for anyone to watch online at www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/human-trafficking. I plan to promote it as widely as possible, so that Texas remains at the forefront of the fight against human trafficking.
As attorney general, one of my first initiatives was the formation of a special unit dedicated to combating human trafficking. And while the Human Trafficking/Transnational Organized Crime Section in my office is working hard — often in conjunction with other law enforcement agencies — to save lives and catch and prosecute traffickers, we still need help from you and all 28 million Texans.
Education and raising awareness are the purposes of “Be the One,” but they should not be considered ends in themselves. They are meant to prepare us for action. It is not enough to simply harbor a vague distaste for human trafficking while discounting the possibility that it may be affecting someone we know. We must be truly vigilant on behalf of our neighbors. We must be ready to act decisively and to call the authorities in response to suspicious activity.
Human trafficking is a national and statewide scourge, but armed with the facts, I am confident that you can “Be the One” to ramp up the fight against this modern-day slavery.
Ken Paxton is the 51st attorney general of Texas.