CBA Record Feb-March 2017

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YLS Special Issue lPROTECTING OUR CHILDREN
38 FEBRUARY/MARCH 2017
Aperson stands at the heart of every
story of human trafficking. A
person who, through coercion
and violence, is forced into prostitution or
slave labor. Each individual’s story is one of
heartbreak, desperation, and abuse.
On January 23, as part of Human
Trafficking Awareness Week, the Young
Lawyers’ Section of the CBA held a seminar
entitled Every Person has a Voice: Exposing,
Examining, and Eradicating Human Traf-
ficking. Speakers included Donna Fishman
of the Jewish Coalition Against Sex Traf-
ficking Chicago, Kaethe Morris Hoffer of
Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploita-
tion (CAASE), Professor Jody Raphael of
DePaul University College of Law, Detec-
tive Al Krok formerly of the Chicago Police
Department, Judge Virginia M. Kendall
of the Northern District of Illinois, and T.
Markus Funk of Perkins Coie LLP. More
than 170 individuals registered for the
seminar.
Understanding Trafficking
Most human trafficking takes place in the
darkest corners of our society. So statistics
regarding the number of victims are very
difficult to come by. The National Human
Trafficking Resource Center, whose hot-
line number is in the title of this article,
reports that it received over 9,000 reports
of human trafficking between 2007 and
2012. Human Trafficking Trends in the
United States (Nov. 2013) http://bit.
ly/2kxVJq3. Twenty-nine percent of those
cases involved children, and of those cases,
74% involved in sex trafficking. These
numbers likely represent only the tip of
the iceberg. Globally, there are an estimated
21,000,000 victims of human trafficking.
Human Trafficking by the Numbers (Jan.
2016), ; see List
of Goods Produced by Child Labor or
Forced Labor, U.S. Department of Labor,
In Chicago alone,
between 16,000 to 25,000 women and girls
are trafficked for sex everyday.
By Oliver Khan
If You See Something, Say Something
1-888-373-7888