Oklahoma Coalition Against Human Trafficking gets $1.3 million DOJ grant

The Family Safety Center and the Tulsa Police Department received $1.3 million in a cooperative agreement from the U.S. Department of Justice's Office for Victims of Crime to fund the Oklahoma Coalition Against Human Trafficking.

“We know this grant will go far and help establish a long term collaboration that will be more effective in fighting trafficking in eastern Oklahoma and can serve as a model for the rest of the state,” said Suzann Stewart, executive director of the Family Safety Center.

The coalition consists of 37 agencies working to advance a multidisciplinary response for human trafficking prevention, protection and prosecution in northeastern Oklahoma.

The coalition formed in 2013 as an unfunded task force focused on child trafficking and in 2019 expanded its scope to include adult victims and labor trafficking. The coalition is also part of the state Department of Human Services' initiative to address human trafficking.

Through the cooperative agreement, the Family Safety Center and the Tulsa Police Department will be assigned a technical adviser to help put their program together.

The Office for Victims of Crime “will be working with the coalition to help establish policies, protocols, procedures, and a really good tight network of service delivery,” Stewart said.

The Family Safety Center plans to use some of the funding to employ a full-time director for the coalition and to raise public awareness.

“There'll be money for training conferences, for travel, for services,” Stewart said. “And the Tulsa Police Department will be paying for overtime for investigations for officers on these crimes. I think some of it is allocated to research and also to specific prosecution of those cases.”

Every Tulsa police officer is trained to recognize the signs of human trafficking, Chief Wendell Franklin said, but the Tulsa Police Department also has a dedicated Human Trafficking Unit.

From July to September, 104 people were arrested for human-trafficking-related offenses and 29 victims were rescued, according to the Police Department.

“This funding will enable the community to come together on even greater ways as we seek to support victims and survivors on the road to hope and healing,” said Karen Smith, program director for the Family Safety Center.