Placentia, CA – This week, U.S. Representative Young Kim (CA-39) held the first CA-39 Human Trafficking Congressional Task Force meeting in her Placentia office to hear from local law enforcement and nonprofit groups on the front lines of preventing and addressing human trafficking in our Southern California communities.
Rep. Kim announced the Task Force last month to bring stakeholders together to identify problems, find policy solutions and inform Rep. Kim’s work in Congress.
Read more about the first meeting in the Orange County Register.
The Orange County Register
Congressional task force on human trafficking launches in Southern California
By Brooke Staggs
March 22, 2022
Educate students, starting in middle school, about how to avoid becoming victims of human trafficking.
Change federal law so traffickers can’t dodge a long prison sentence by claiming they didn’t know their victim was a child.
Give money and shelter to teens aging out of foster care so they won’t continue to be top targets for human trafficking.
Those ideas are just part of a wish list from a panel of 10 experts who gathered March 21 in Placentia for the inaugural meeting of the Human Trafficking Congressional Task Force.
Rep. Young Kim, R-La Habra, launched the federal task force to hear directly from Orange County law enforcement who are on the front lines of prosecuting human traffickers, and leaders of Southern California nonprofits who work to prevent trafficking and to support survivors.
“Many people think that this is just something that doesn’t apply to me,” Kim said. “(But) modern day slavery is something that happens in our backyard, too. It happens in Fullerton, it happens in Santa Ana, it happens at the border, it happens everywhere.”
And, Kim added, the pandemic has only meant “increased risks and reduced prevention efforts” related to human trafficking.
Monday’s roundtable offered a snapshot of what human trafficking looks like locally, what work already is being done to fight it, and where more help is needed.
Kim said she hopes these conversations, which will happen at least once a quarter, might inform legislation she can introduce and federal funding requests she can make to help tackle the problem across the nation.
“They already know what they are doing,” Kim said of the experts who spoke during Monday’s task force meeting. “So I just want to be helpful by being supportive of the existing programs and enhancing their work.”
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Read the full article HERE.
