kansan.com
Thursday, February 2, 2012
<a href='http://ads
Gov. Sam Brownback shares his experiences with seeing human trafficking Thursday night in the Kansas Union Ballroom. Brownback encouraged students and local residences to take action by working with redemption programs and going to countries to see first hand the affects of human trafficking.
Gov. Sam Brownback shares his experiences with seeing human trafficking Thursday night in the Kansas Union Ballroom. Brownback encouraged students and local residences to take action by working with redemption programs and going to countries to see first hand the affects of human trafficking.
Brownback shared why he thought human trafficking was an important issue to a crowd of more than 200 people at the event hosted by the Emily Taylor Women’s Resource Center.
“It’s important, it’s key, it’s happening in your world,” he said. “You need to do something about it.”
Brownback started to explore the issue of human trafficking when he heard about occurrences in Sudan. He visited in 2004 and listened to anecdotal stories. Since then he has visited shelters in different countries with trafficking problems including Uganda, North Korea and Myanmar.
Brownback wanted to give the audience an idea of how trafficking affects the people in these countries. “It’s the worst you can imagine,” he said.
The U.S. Department of Justice defines human trafficking crimes as actions that “focus on the act of compelling or coercing a person’s labor, services, or commercial sex acts.”
Brownback was an original co-sponsor of the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, a bill that sparked reform of trafficking laws. The act was renewed in 2008.
However, Kansas is specifically considered a state with weaker laws, according to political science graduate student Laura Dean, who played an integral role in getting Brownback to speak on campus.
“We’re missing lots of things like victim service protection,” Dean said. “Many victims suffer STDs or are pregnant when they come in.”
Dean, 31, researched trafficking in Kansas and worked in a shelter for trafficking victims in Latvia. “Right now they go to half-way houses,” she said. “But there are no shelters dedicated specifically to trafficking victims.”
Brownback said he hopes lawmakers can set aside personal differences and help curb trafficking.
“I think what we really need to be doing nationally as a country right now, is focusing on policies that created pools of trafficking victims,” he said.
Kansas is known to be a hub of trafficking in the United States. Dean said that Kansas’ location and economy make it a major transportation area for victims.
“There’s a major highway that runs from Canada to Mexico that traffickers use,” Dean said about Interstate-35, which runs through south-eastern Kansas. “The agriculturally based economy also makes it a place for forced labor and trafficking.”
While I-35 crosses Kansas, Interstate-70 crosses the whole state horizontally - it stretches from Utah to Maryland. The two highways intersect in Kansas City, which has one of the highest numbers of trafficking arrests in the country.
Brownback encouraged the audience to get involved in the issue on a global level.
“Pick an area and focus on it,” he said. “...give (victims) a name and a face.”
He also said he talked to Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little, who was in attendance, about raising money for a center of human trafficking on campus where students can earn degrees that would help them eliminate trafficking.
After the event, Dean said she was glad a large crowd showed up and that Brownback had some good points. “I think he showed his knowledge on the subject,” she said. “It was a great opporunity to share his experiences.”
Brownback hopes his talk raised awareness of trafficking in the audience.
“I hope they get the scope of what’s happening,” he said. “And I hope some of them were motivated.”
<a href='http://adserver.kansan.com/www/delivery/ck.php?n=a3784a59' target='_blank'><img src='http://adserver.kansan.com/www/delivery/avw.php?zoneid=12&n=a3784a59' border='0' alt='' /></a>
No comments:
Post a Comment