JANUARY 26 • 2023 | 11
J
anuary is National Human Trafficking
Prevention Month. Motivated by our
own traumatic history of Joseph being
sold into slavery to the Exodus from Egypt,
many in the Jewish community here in
Detroit and around the nation have taken
up the cause of fighting and preventing
human trafficking.
Organizations such as the National
Council of Jewish Women (NCJW),
Polaris, Sanctum House and others are
ramping up efforts to educate the public
about this criminal industry, teaching
people to recognize the signs that a person
is being trafficked and fighting to create
environments and legislation that will ease
the way for those reclaiming their
lives after surviving sex or labor
trafficking.
“Even the Haftarah we read
each Yom Kippur from Isiah
speaks about breaking the yoke of
slavery,
” said Robert Beiser, strategic
initiatives director of sex trafficking
for Polaris, a national
organization that keeps
statistics and data on
human trafficking by
operating the National
Human Trafficking
Hotline. “Fighting
against human
trafficking is a Jewish
value with roots that go as deep as
the Exodus from Egypt and carry on
through the generations that Jews
endured persecution and captivity,
all the way up to the Holocaust. It
is our calling and responsibility to not look
away and to take action against modern-
day slavery.
”
According to the National Human
Trafficking Hotline, there were 1,186
signals to the hotline of trafficking activity
that originated in Michigan in 2021. The
victims were predominantly women,
with 252 females and 28 males caught in
sex trafficking activity. There were 295
identified cases that involved 429 victims in
total. The locations and nature of the acts
were varied.
Nationwide, the Hotline received 50,123
tips from calls, texts and online chats in
2021 alone. Since its creation in 2007,
Polaris has identified 82,301 cases of human
trafficking that involved 164,839 victims.
The Polaris Project noted the sharp
increase of trafficking of people in known
relationships during 2020. For example, in
2020, among all forms of trafficking whose
recruitment relationships were known
(4,142), the proportion of victims recruited
by a family member or caregiver increased
significantly — from 21% of all victims in
2019 to 31% in 2020 — a 47% increase.
In addition, the proportion recruited by
intimate partners jumped 21% — from 22%
in 2019 to 27% in 2020.
In labor trafficking situations, of the
1,572 national victims whose recruitment
was known in 2020: 69% were recruited by
a potential or current employer; 15% were
recruited into trafficking by a member of
their own family; and 5% by an intimate
partner or marriage proposition.
Keeping an accurate tally on such
statistics while also shining a light on the
individual stories of survivors in recovery,
Polaris dispels human trafficking myths and
makes an impact on the lives of those who
have been trafficked by harnessing data to
reduce, prevent and end the practice while
showing how the crime intersects in the
worlds of business, finance, government
and society.
Beiser has been working with Jewish
organizations across the country to raise
awareness. He said that NCJW chapters
across the country have been instrumental
in aligning leaders in the Jewish community
with anti-trafficking activists and other
Jewish organizations such as the Religious
Action Community to not only bring
awareness and understanding to the general
public, but also to enforce and strengthen
the 2000 Trafficking Victims Protection
Act, which makes trafficking a federal
crime and provides resources and funding
to aid survivors.
“Trafficking survivors want to see many
changes to our labor and immigration
practices, and this requires a great deal of
advocacy,
” Beiser said. “From my previous
work in the Jewish community, I know that
it’s not just adults who are getting
involved, but there are efforts within
Jewish youth groups and Jewish
day schools to teach teens about the
issue, who, in turn, want to teach
their peers.
”
Cindy Weintraub, co-chair
for NCJW Michigan’s Human
Trafficking Awareness committee,
worked for years as a registered
nurse specializing in the quality and
safety of emergency
room patient care at
Beaumont Troy. In
2014, she decided it
would be beneficial
if she and her staff
enrolled in a one-hour
training course to
identify potential victims of human
trafficking.
“The course opened our eyes to
the shocking fact that we had been treating
and caring for human trafficking victims
all along, but we didn’t realize it at the
time,
” said Weintraub, who also sits on the
Michigan Human Trafficking Task Force.
“It was then I realized how big of a problem
this is, right here in our own backyard.
Those who are trafficked come from every
socioeconomic and racial background.
And, yes, it does happen right here in
Oakland County.
”
EDUCATING TEENS
Weintraub’s co-chair is Rita Sitron, who
is working to bring human trafficking
awareness and education into the public-
school arena.
continued on page 12
Robert
Beiser
Cindy
Weintraub