FRANKFORT, Ky. (LEX 18) — In 2021, the White House estimated that 25 million people are subjected to human trafficking and forced labor globally. On this Human Trafficking Awareness Day, Frankfort's police department hosted community agencies from around the state at Paul Sawyier Public Library to learn more about human trafficking and its effects in the Commonwealth.
One attendee, Kara Olsen says, "This is something that, it's really starting to riddle our communities. When he said you could go anywhere, any town, any neighborhood here in Kentucky -- I didn't realize how bad it was here until he had mentioned it, and you know we've got to take care of our innocent."
Frankfort PD's detective Ricky Lynn led the session. He also serves as the state's human trafficking task force chair. Lynn is busting myths, identifying vulnerable groups, teaching the signs, and defining human trafficking.
"Human trafficking can happen at your neighbor's house and it requires no travel. There is trafficking going on in every town and every county in Kentucky. When I worked for the attorney general’s office, that was a proven fact. We received complaints from everybody,” says Lynn.
He shares that human trafficking may not always look like it's typically depicted. It happens most often when vulnerabilities are exploited. He wants the community to partner to prevent human trafficking, create protections, prosecute offenders, and create policies to address the issue.
Lynn shares, "I don't think we've done enough in the community. So when we talk about human trafficking and we see that on the news, and the news does a great job telling stories about people that get caught, but I think it's really important that we can discourage people from performing human trafficking or doing human trafficking and hurting other people just by doing their jobs well."
Olsen wants the community to consider that this could happen to anyone and wants people to pay more attention to their opportunities to help.
She says, "You don't think about a lot of the people that you cross, who you could cross on a regular basis, and that might have been somebody that needed help. It could be man, woman, child, it doesn't matter."
