HUMAN TRAFFICKING AWARENESS DAY

Today, Los Angeles City, County, and Federal officials, including Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton, Los Angeles Councilman Tony Cardenas, Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti, gathered to announce the declaration of National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. 

Trafficking is modern-day slavery, involving victims who are forced, defrauded or coerced into labor or sexual exploitation. Each year, thousands of people-mostly women and children -are trafficked across national borders.  People are snared into trafficking by many means. In some cases, physical force is used.  In others, false promises are made regarding job opportunities or marriages in foreign countries to entrap victims.  Human trafficking deprives people of their human rights and freedoms and supports organized crime.  Profits of human trafficking exceed nine billion dollars per year.

  Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in 2000 and strengthened it in 2003. This law provides law enfocement officials with the necessary tools to combat trafficking in persons, both domestically and abroad. 

On April 23, 2004, Councilmember Tony Cardenas lead the City's response to this "egregious human rights tragedy" after a raid in South Los Angeles found women and girls trafficked from a foreign country who had been bound, stripped of passports and forced to work as prostitutes.  In a corraborative effort, city, county, state, federal and public entities formed the Los Angeles Metropolitan Human Trafficking Task Force to address this issue in Southern California.  The goals of the Task Force, all attained, were to work as a partner with federal law enforcement officials, identify and rescue victims, develop a comprehensive training program for law enforcement agencies-countywide. and establish an "800 tipster line number" Phone Number 800-655-4095 is established to report potential trafficking incidents.