Human Trafficking Prevention Month card, banner, January. Vector illustration. EPS10

With January being National Trafficking Prevention Month, awareness is also an important factor.

Adair and Guthrie County Emergency Management Coordinator Jeremy Cooper says that the first step in prevention is to be aware of it, and what can happen. He shares the underlying reason and importance to preventing human trafficking.

“It’s not something that has always been in the forefront everywhere, you know? It’s not like drunk driving, (where) it’s always been there, we know what happens and we can see it. It’s kind of a hidden thing. People try to be secretive with it, but it’s happening, and the more often we can talk about it and we can see things out there in public and read things about it, the more awareness we have, the less likely it’s going to happen in our communities.”

Cooper mentions that some signs of human trafficking can include someone being overbearing to another person, answering questions asked towards that individual and not letting the victim speak. He adds that it is difficult at times to know if trafficking is occurring, especially because a lot of the time, the victims don’t even realize that they’re being trafficked until they’ve been saved.