SCC high school students learn online safety, how to identify human trafficking

Amber Lawrence of Teens Against Human Trafficking had a simple question for South Central Calhoun High School students last week.
“How many of you think you could pick a trafficker out of a lineup?” Lawrence asked the students during an assembly Dec. 6.
A number of hands went into the air.
Lawrence asked the students if they would have chosen a woman in her 50s, with shoulder-length hair who looked like she could have been a classmate’s parent or a teacher. That’s the physical description of the first person convicted in Iowa of human trafficking.
“You are never going to know by looking at someone if they are a trafficker,” Lawrence said.
She walked the students through a series of exercises in which they analyzed true stories, re-enacted in videos, of teens who were forced into the sex trade. The four teens whose stories were featured all ended well, with the teens eventually being found by family or law enforcement, who helped them to escape their traffickers. Most trafficking victims aren’t that lucky, Lawrence said. The average time spent as a victim of trafficking is seven years, and most victims die, either by violence, suicide or drug addiction. 
Read more in the Dec. 13 edition.