I work in IT. I am not a social worker, a police officer, an educator, a nurse, or in any kind of vocation where my day-to-day life interacts with human trafficking. At least not knowingly.
Those front-line workers are heroes. We know they are because children dream of doing most of those jobs. Ask a child what they want to be when they grow up, and most of the answers will be teacher, police officer, fire fighter, doctor, nurse, or astronaut. With the exception of the last of these, these jobs all involve interactions with other humans when humans are not at their best. Aren’t kids awesome?
Working in IT, for large institutions in New Hampshire, I rarely come across victims of human trafficking, or even those most at risk of human trafficking. And I suspect I am not alone in this. The vast majority of human trafficking victims have one of the following attributes:
Substance addiction;
No family, or difficult family relationships; or
Mental illness
None of these attributes are anything to be ashamed of. 1 in 5 people experience mental illness in any given year (source). Only 4% of American adults have blonde hair (source), so mental illness is five times as prevalent as being blond. Mental illness is highly correlated to substance addiction - many people with mental illness turn to substances, legal and not, to cope with their ailment. Of course, substance abuse can also damage one's brain, causing mental illness (source). Finally, mental illness, substance abuse, and bad luck can all cause people to have limited or no family support structures.
As a lay person, these facts break my heart. Through no fault of their own, innocent people are forced to work with little or no pay, commit crimes, and perform other acts which, in normal circumstances, they would not do.
This blog post is not the news, though. I don’t want you to read this and then go away feeling sad and powerless. There are concrete things you can do to help. The following list gets more difficult as it goes down:
Share news and facts on social media from verifiable sources (e.g. not from online conspiracy theories).
Donate money to one of the Task Force’s member organizations.
Volunteer at one of the Task Force's member organizations.
Just because we do not come across trafficking in our privileged lives, does not mean it does not happen. New Hampshire is a beautiful state, in all four seasons, and this beauty can sometimes make it seem as though there is nothing difficult happening in the lives of our fellow citizens. Being aware is important, but so is being active.
I hope you can join the hundreds of volunteers all around the state in trying to make other people happier.
Gavin Ayling
Community Member