On Friday, February 2nd, St. Ambrose DEI invited Maggie Tinsman, the founder of Braking Traffik to speak on campus about human trafficking and the campaign currently taking place to provide state funding for victims of human trafficking.
Human trafficking is “a crime that involves compelling or coercing a person to provide labor or services, or to engage in commercial sex acts. The coercion can be subtle or overt, physical or psychological” (U.S. Department of Justice). Human trafficking takes place all over the country, in urban areas and in rural areas. Iowa is not exempt from the horrors of human trafficking.
The presentation by Maggie Tinsman included startling statistics about the prevalence of human trafficking as well as the current proposal to allocate state funds in Iowa to support victims. The current proposal asks for 5 million dollars of state funding in the 2025 budget to be allocated to serving victims of human trafficking.
The presentation concluded with Dr. Allison Ambrose on behalf of Progressive Action for the Common Good, leading a letter-writing campaign to Iowa legislatures asking for their support on the allocation of funds to supporting victims.
For anyone interested in learning more about human trafficking or about what you can do to help, I will leave a list of resources below.
Iowa Network Against Human Trafficking and Slavery – Information about human trafficking in the state of Iowa.
Iowa NAHT Resources – List of resources for human trafficking including Crisis Lines and local supports.
Training – One option for training. This is a free training from the Polaris Project, other options are available from various organizations.