Volunteer State News

When President Donald Trump proclaimed the month of January as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, he called upon industry associations, law enforcement, private businesses, faith-based groups and other organizations to support victims and survivors while holding traffickers accountable for the crime.

“Human trafficking is a horrific assault on human dignity that affects people in the United States and around the world,” Trump said in a Dec. 31, 2020, statement online. “It tears apart communities, fuels criminal activity and threatens the national security of the United States.”

Also known as Human Trafficking Awareness Month, Hope For Justice is among the national organizations that are taking action locally and internationally in observance.

“The team works with police to identify and rescue victims, who may be children targeted by online groomers, runaway or homeless youth trafficked into the sex trade, or adults forced into domestic work,” Hope for Justice CEO Ben Cooley told Volunteer State News. "We also gather intelligence about traffickers and gangs, hold perpetrators to account, and train a wide range of people about human trafficking.”

Hope for Justice runs projects from more than 30 locations across five continents, including Africa.

“The picture of human trafficking is different in each country or area, as well as being different in the developing world and the developed world,” Cooley said. “Our work in the U.S. differs from our work in Ethiopia, which lacks the infrastructure which helps us investigate at the speed which we can in the U.S. In the U.S. we are more reliant on technology to help us whereas in Ethiopia we are more likely to depend on a network of local contacts and community organizations.”

Stateside, Cooley and his team work with investigators from law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI and Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS).

Hope for Justice’s U.S. team leader is Richard Schoeberl, a former FBI agent in Nashville.

“The signs must be known and reported by everyone,” Cooley said in an interview. “All victims must be rescued and supported to recover, and perpetrators must be held to account. The idea of enslaving a human being and profiting from their terror and misery must be offensive and unacceptable to everyone.”

Last year, Hope for Justice trained more than 20,000 law enforcement personnel, health workers, businesses and other NGOs and government officials on how to spot the signs of human trafficking and how to report a concern, according to Hope for Justice data.

“We know there are many more people that fall between the cracks and continue to be under the control of ruthless traffickers, or are at risk of being trafficked," Cooley said. "It’s vitally important that we reach many more people with our lifesaving and life-changing help. Everyone must join the global movement, which we believe will see an end to modern slavery. We must come together across the globe to create societies hostile to human trafficking.”