TRAFFICKING AWARENESS

compiling accurate trafficking data is difficult, Statista reported the number of identified victims worldwide quadrupled between 2008 to 2019, from an estimated 30,000 to 120,000 people.

Internationally, The Salvation Army is committed to doing its part in the fight against trafficking through both awareness training and services for survivors. In the United States, this initiative includes Fight for Freedom, a 10-year action plan launched in 2016 to combat trafficking.

Larsson said traffickers are smart and their targeting requires those assisting victims to be vigilant and often adapt how services are provided. For example, some will take advantage of outreach events to people in need, including food distributions, Larsson said, to target potential victims.

“The traffickers focus on the vulnerable in society. They trick them into believing that they can fill the voids and give them what they need by telling the vulnerable people that they love them, that they will take care of them, buy them meals and nice clothes, or provide a place to stay—and then they have control and exploit those in need,” she said, noting the importance for Salvation Army staff and volunteers to be trained in how to react to a potential trafficking situation.

“You have to respond carefully,” she said, adding that victims often don't realize they’re being trafficked. When

Over his career at UPS, Keim has held various responsibilities in Airline Operations, Industrial Engineering, Enterprise Retail Sales, Healthcare Strategy, Supply Chain Transportation and most recently in Customer Solutions as Managing Director of Global Solutions, working with UPS’s largest customers to design, and implement sustainable global supply chain business models.

Meet the Vice-Chair: Caltha Seymour

Caltha Seymour is Director, Business Development and Strategic Planning, Mission Systems Division, Industrial Sector for Eaton, a power management company.

Named to this role in August 2022, Seymour has responsibility for strategic planning and business development of products in the Actuation and Environmental Systems, with significant focus in the areas of M&A activities, profit planning, external relationships, and portfolio management.

Originally from Canada, Seymour is in her sixth year working for Eaton and is a 2018 graduate of Eaton’s Global Leadership Development Program. She’s held positions managing new product development, enter- suspicious, she said staff might strike up a conversation with the individual, distracting them away from potential harm.

The Salvation Army also posts awareness decals in its social service facilities with questions that suggest trafficking without specifically asking, “Are you being trafficked?” Larsson said these materials instead might ask: Are you not allowed to leave your job? Are you not in control of the money you earn? Are you threatened if you don’t follow the rules? Are you forced to provide work or services against your will?

Building awareness

The Social Justice Ministries Department hosted 91 awareness, prevention and outreach events, reaching 5,960 people, in 2022. More than 900 people received in-depth training, up from 261 in 2021, something Orange County Anti-Trafficking Services (ATS) Manager Morgan Guzman applauded.

According to a 2022 report from New University, some 80 percent of human trafficking victims from around the country end up in Orange County, California.

Guzman said the Army’s Orange County program helps survivors of both labor and sex trafficking, including a 24-hour-staffed safe home for American-born, sex-trafficked females between the ages of 18 to 25 and three guest houses for foreign nationals, including male and female survivors of labor trafficking.

In February, Guzman celebrated with Joel, a graduate of Orange Coun-