Prince William schools educate staff, students and parents on human trafficking

By Jim Barnes January 11

Jessica Woelkers, a social worker with Prince William County schools, asked a group of middle school staff members last month whether they knew the average age at which children enter into human trafficking. One hazarded a guess: 16? Another suggested 15.

Its age 13, Woelkers replied. For both males and females.

Woelkers was presenting a training session on human trafficking to teacher assistants at New Dominion Middle School, an alternative school in the Manassas area. It was part of a grant-supported program the school system has initiated to educate students, parents and school employees about human trafficking and to increase awareness of the problem.

Prince William schools started the trafficking prevention program in response to a 2012 Virginia General Assembly mandate that school systems educate students about the hazards of getting involved in teen trafficking, Young said.

Woelkers said that trafficking takes two main forms: labor and sex. In labor trafficking, people are coerced into performing work for which they do not receive a fair wage. This has been a problem for day laborers and domestic workers in Northern Virginia and in businesses such as restaurants and spas, she said.

Most of the training session focused on sex trafficking, in which teens are lured into the commercial sex trade, which includes prostitution, pornography and performing in strip clubs.

The common thread, Woelkers said, is coercion, often involving fear or threats.

Betsy Young, supervisor of social workers for the school system, told the class that teen trafficking is a problem even in relatively affluent counties such as Prince William.

Trafficking cuts across all socioeconomic lines, Young said. A human trafficking operation broken up by the FBI in 2012 the largest juvenile sex trafficking bust in the United States up to that time involved girls from Lorton and Woodbridge, she said.

See the original post here:
Prince William schools educate staff, students and parents on human trafficking