Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate says police often classify cases of human trafficking as some other type of offense, like a drug crime, but hotlines are fielding more reports about people being forced into all types of labor.
“People are calling it in now and either saying: ‘I’m a victim and I need help,’ or ‘We saw something you need to be aware of,'” Pate said during an interview. “Those numbers are going up significantly every year and a lot of that I think is attributed to what we’re doing and others are doing to put more awareness out there.”
On Tuesday, Pate and a manager of the federal government’s anti-human trafficking campaign hosted a seminar for more than 100 people — mostly Iowans — to discuss the warning signs. Tom Ruck of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security says an estimated 750,000 predators are online.
“They’re looking for that vulnerable person. They’re looking for somebody they can easily groom or they can become a boyfriend to or a girlfriend to,” Ruck said after the seminar. “…The indicators could be just simply if it doesn’t look right, it probably isn’t.”
Iowa’s secretary of state launched an anti-human trafficking campaign in 2022, encouraging Iowa businesses to train employees to recognize the signs of human trafficking. Pate’s office is in charge of Iowa’s “Safe at Home” program which provides confidential addresses that survivors of human trafficking and other types of abuse, like stalking, can use to make it harder for their abusers to find them.
