COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio is pulling together libraries, rest areas, clinics and facilities run by state agencies to build awareness about human trafficking.
Gov. John Kasich’s office made the announcement Thursday, during an annual Human Trafficking Awareness Day at the Statehouse Thursday.
“We may not want to admit it—it’s almost too horrific to imagine—but the fact is that human trafficking is real and is happening across Ohio,” Kasich said.
Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor.
Kasich’s office estimates more than 1,000 Ohio children become victims of human trafficking annually and 3,000 more are considered “at-risk.”
Kasich’s office says the goals of the awareness campaign are to educate people on how to recognize the signs of human trafficking, how to report it and how to direct victims to available services and treatment.
For instance, the Ohio Turnpike Commission plans to place posters in its service plazas. Posters will be sent to about 730 Ohio libraries, and the state’s public safety agency will make 5,000 posters available to people.
Posters will also be placed in Department of Youth Services facilities and the agency will use the campaign to join forces with local anti-trafficking organizations and shelters.
Materials will be posted in all prisons, health clinics in every county and all Ohio Farm Worker Program offices.
The licensing boards for nursing, medical and pharmacy professionals are teaming up in a joint effort to reach their licensees with the campaign materials.
The materials will be translated into Spanish, and distributed the immigrant communities.
The Ohio Human Trafficking Task Force, created by Kasich in March, 2012, says a lack of public knowledge as the largest barrier to combating the problem.