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Prosecutors: Contents of cellphone a motive in throat-slashing in Bear Creek

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Letter to the Editor: Bring some sanity to Pennsylvania’s $63 billion pension problem

<p>You don&#8217;t want to believe it.</p><p>Human trafficking &#8211; essentially a modern-day form of slavery that entraps women and girls for use as prostitutes &#8211; sounds so abhorrent, it couldn&#8217;t possibly be happening in Pennsylvania, much less our corner of the commonwealth, could it? Regrettably, that&#8217;s a naive and wrong view.</p><p>At a conference scheduled for Friday in Wilkes-Barre, organizers with the <a href="http://fsawv.org/" target="_blank">Family Service Association of Northeastern Pennsylvania</a> intend to spur wider awareness of the pervasive problem that Pope Francis has called a crime against humanity.</p><p>Advance registration was required for the day-long conference titled &#8220;Human Trafficking: From Denial to Engagement.&#8221;</p><p>Attendees, such as teachers, school social workers, police and other first-line responders, will be urged to watch for indicators that a girl is being exploited. Among the expected presenters: a Chester County assistant district attorney whose session is called &#8220;Closed Doors &amp; Open Spaces: Labor Trafficking in Our Midst.&#8221;</p><p>Globally, the enslavement of people for prostitution and forced labor &#8220;has reached epidemic proportions,&#8221; according to a column appearing earlier this year on pennlive.com and co-written by state Sen. Daylin Leach and two representatives of the <a href="http://cseinstitute.org/" target="_blank"> Villanova Law Institute to Address Commercial Sexual Exploitation</a>.</p><p>&#8220;Pennsylvania&#8217;s &#8216;keystone&#8217; nature is uniquely attractive to traffickers, as it facilitates transportation to and from the northeastern United States,&#8221; <a href="http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2016/01/heres_what_pa_is_doing_to_figh.html" target="_blank">the column</a> stated.</p><p>Certain state lawmakers and advocates have tried for years to find ways to help victims, who sometimes get caught up in a harsh legal system that treats them only as prostitutes or illegal aliens.</p><p>A June 2012 government report titled &#8220;<a href="http://jsg.legis.state.pa.us/resources/documents/ftp/publications/2012-283-2012%20Human%20Trafficking%20Report.pdf" target="_blank">Human Trafficking in Pennsylvania: Policy Recommendations and Proposed Legislation</a>&#8221; indicated some of the typical victims include &#8220;runaway teenage girls who are preyed upon by pimps.&#8221; The report also mentioned that schemes are used to entice women and girls here from other nations to work as &#8220;waitresses.&#8221; Perpetrators use threats, physical violence, drugs and other forms of manipulation to keep the victims under their control, according to the report.</p><p>Polaris, a Washington, D.C.-based group billing itself as &#8220;a leader in the global fight to eradicate modern slavery,&#8221; provides more information about human trafficking at its internet site, <a href="http://polarisproject.org/" target="_blank">polarisproject.org</a>. Victims are encouraged to call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center Hotline at 1-888-373-7888.</p><p>The Family Service Association&#8217;s staffers deserve credit for spotlighting this topic in the Wyoming Valley, where human trafficking deserves wider recognition as a scourge on society. And where a sufficient local response can be coordinated to assist victims.</p><style>
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Our Opinion: Sex trade’s victims in NEPA too often ignored or treated solely as criminals