Child Sex Trafficking discussion to be hosted by Rotary Club in San Marcos

Staff Reports

SAN MARCOS – Rick Naylor is founder and Executive Director of Partners Against Child Trafficking (PACT), based in Austin. Naylor shares information about child trafficking and ways to address it at the Rotary Club of San Marcos meeting on Wednesday, January 5.

The meeting will be held at noon in the Holiday Inn Convention Center, 105 Bintu Drive, San Marcos. Visitors are welcome.

PACT is a leading authority and advocacy organization that trains youth and adults on how to detect, defend, and disrupt child trafficking. It is recognized as a Continuing Education provider by the Texas Health and Human Services and is a 501(c)3 nonprofit. Naylor says child sex trafficking is a worldwide problem of 4.5 million victims and a local problem with 79,000 victims in Texas.

Rotary District 5840, serving South Central Texas, has made a priority of asking clubs to share information about all forms of human trafficking, which is a major problem in Texas.

The District says, “Human trafficking is considered a modern-day form of slavery and usually involves commercial sexual exploitation or forced labor.”

A report by the Statewide Human Trafficking Mapping Project estimates that 79,000 Texas youth are victims of sex trafficking. Another 234,000 people in Texas are estimated to be victims of labor trafficking, forced to perform domestic or agricultural work without their consent.”

The Human Trafficking Unit in the Attorney General’s Office has a website with information and a video about the issue: https://texasattorneygeneral.gov/human-trafficking. PACT also has a website that shares information specifically about their efforts to address sex trafficking:  www.pact.city.

January is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. Human trafficking, known as modern slavery, includes forced labor and sex trafficking. Some estimate that as many as 24.9 million people, including children and adults, are trapped in human trafficking around the world, according to the Department of State.