Join the Movement to Stop Human Trafficking is spreading awareness through the month of January by placing coffee cup sleeves in local shops to promote its efforts in combating human trafficking.
Join the Movement to Stop Human Trafficking is spreading awareness through the month of January by placing coffee cup sleeves in local shops to promote its efforts in combating human trafficking.
ELKHORN—Join the Movement to Stop Human Trafficking is spreading awareness of January being National Human Trafficking Prevention Month by placing coffee cup sleeves in local shops to promote its efforts in combating human trafficking.
The Walworth County-based nonprofit provided 2,500 sleeves that featured a link to its website where it describes what it does to limit human trafficking. Dawn Heath-Fiedler, Join the Movement president and founder, said she got the idea to distribute coffee sleeves from another organization that did something similar last April for Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
“It has been a phenomenal response,” Heath-Fiedler said. “It has only been a week and I only have one sleeve left.”
She said the more people know about her organization, the more they will be aware that human trafficking is happening in their own communities.
According to a news release, Join the Movement provides training for parents, teens, law enforcement, medical staff and the public about signs of human trafficking and social media practices that can make children vulnerable to predators. It also provides emergency crisis advocacy on weekends to victims of human trafficking and domestic violence and/or sexual assault survivors at Aurora Health Care facilities in Elkhorn and Burlington.
Organizations throughout Wisconsin, Minnesota and the Midwest have received such training, according to the release.
In the last year, the organization added its community advocate resource evaluation (CARE) program, which consists of a team of trained advocates who help people through crises and help them find resources. It also began offering services to jail inmates who were also trafficking victims. Since April 1 of last year, the CARE program team has helped 26 people at hospitals or the Walworth County Jail, according to the release.
Heath-Fiedler said her research has found that Wisconsin has high rates of human trafficking, she said. A number of reasons contribute to the high rate, she said. One is the proximity to Chicago and the highway routes in and out of that city, she said.
She added that since the pandemic, social media has made it easier for traffickers to gain access to children.
“It’s about educating people about human trafficking and how social media has played a role in that and giving them the tools to make better decisions or help out other people,” she said.
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