By Gateway Alliance against Human Trafficking Team
Every January, we recognize Human Trafficking Awareness Month and rally support for our work among the community that we need in this fight with us.
But we also want to use this month as an opportunity to explain just how important basic awareness of human trafficking can be, and the effectiveness of our approach.
Since 2014, the Gateway Alliance against Human Trafficking (GAHT) has been meeting a critical need in our region’s approach to end human trafficking.
The convergence of interstate highways, major waterways, and our central location makes St. Louis a top-twenty hub for human trafficking.
But because human trafficking is too often a “hidden” crime, and victims and survivors are stigmatized, shamed, or silenced, education and awareness of the reality of trafficking remains a challenge.
That’s why a central focus of our work has been to demystify what human trafficking looks like in reality. It’s almost never the “shadowy cabal” of dark and twisted elites battling against the well-intentioned rogue special forces agent hellbent on dismantling their networks piece by piece.
I love Liam Neeson’s turn to righteous action hero in the Taken movie series as much as the next person. But what’s so much more impressive is the way that normal everyday people can forever change lives — with the proper training, awareness, and understanding of their own capability and role in ending this tragic enterprise.
We’ve said it before and it bears repeating: bus drivers, educators, the tired cop on the night shift—each of these have more power to tear apart the invisible chains of human trafficking than an entire squadron of imaginary Liam Neesons or Tom Cruises.
Confronting the brutal reality of human trafficking is the key to making serious strides toward finally ending it.
When you begin to see how hyper-online toxic masculinity culture and its profit-motivated purveyors like the Tate brothers—both of which have been credibly accused of exploiting vulnerable women and children in Romania and across the globe—influence an entire generation of young men all at once, you can then understand the true scope of the problem.
The networks, the ways and the means that human beings are in fact trafficked and exploited, are crucial components to the fight to stop human trafficking.
But where there is a will there is a way: prevention, education, awareness, and addressing root causes and societal tolerance for the toxic attitudes that allow trafficking to grow and fester in the first place are absolutely indispensable.
By demystifying, educating, and empowering more people to take action to stop trafficking, we save lives together every single day.
GAHT’s focus is education, empowerment, and prevention — helping students, first responders, law enforcement, and others who are well-positioned in society to learn how to spot the signs of human trafficking and take action to stop or disrupt it.
Our professional, highly-trained team conducts frequent training sessions and outreach in the community to raise awareness and visibility for what far too many still consider to be a “taboo” topic.
GAHT program specialists conduct in-depth training and education among three key groups: education for professionals (police officers, social workers, etc); age-appropriate curricula for schools and basic awareness for students and teachers; and training for community groups and advocates.
Our mission is fueled by the belief that a creative, empowering, and innovative approach to preventing and disrupting human trafficking is the pathway to lasting change.
Together, we are making human trafficking too costly for perpetrators and nearly impossible to pull off in a world where more and more individuals are clued in to what trafficking actually looks like, and are empowered to take action to stop it.
If you take one thing away from this message, or from following our work at all, it should be this: your role in this fight is much, much bigger and more important than you think.
Thank you for being involved and taking action with us.