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FOR SAFETY’ S SAKE
risk of victims being rescued or recognized,” said Kendis Paris, TAT executive director,“ which is why hotels, motels, rest stops travel plazas and truck stops are prime locations for them to frequent. We also know they seldom work alone. Thy pay people to find customers for them. They employ watchers, both to look out for law enforcement and to watch the activity of their victims, so they don’ t get away. The more people who are aware of human trafficking and how traffickers operate … the more people we can train … the better chance we have of cutting their ability to conduct business, and the better chance we have of getting law enforcement involved so victims are rescued and perpetrators are arrested.”
TAT currently supplies a trucking-industryspecific training DVD to members of the trucking industry as well as wallet cards. The wallet cards carry a list of helpful tips to provide law enforcement when calling in suspicious activity as well as trafficking red flags to look for, such as:
• A victim’ s lack of knowledge of their community or whereabouts
• A lack of control by victims of their own identification documents
• Restricted or controlled communication on the part of victims – not being allowed to speak for themselves
• A victim’ s demeanor – fear, anxiety, depression, submissiveness, tenseness or nervousness
If human trafficking is suspected, people are urged to call the National Human Trafficking Hotline, run by Polaris Project, at 1-888-373-7888. CD
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