Attorney general announces task force for human trafficking victims – WBAY

GREEN BAY, Wis. (WBAY) – January is Human Trafficking Prevention Month, and Wednesday the state attorney general announced the formation of a special task force so victims will now have more support.

The goal of the task force is to ensure all victims are identified by law enforcement and receive support services, on top of having every incident investigated and prosecuted.

This task force will follow in the footsteps of a previous one set up in 2015 which was funded by the state for two years.

The money comes from a federal, multi-year grant which will cover the cost of hiring a human trafficking coordinator for the Wisconsin Department of Justice, two victim advocates, and a special agent to focus on the investigations of potential crimes.

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul hopes this encourages more agencies to work together to better identify victims.

He made the announcement in Green Bay surrounded by people who offer support services and members of law enforcement, including the Brown County sheriff, who said trafficking is a problem in Brown County.

Investigators say human trafficking is a crime where victims hesitate to come forward for a variety of reasons.

Kaul also hopes to improve data so the state has a better understanding of how many victims might exist.

“Often, decades ago, there might have been an arrest for prostitution, which now would be handled differently with the knowledge that often the people who are being arrested are often victims of human trafficking,” Kaul said, “so as we work to improve practices, we're also working to get better data so we've got a clearer sense of the overall picture.”

The task force will also target labor trafficking, which includes people forced to work “under the radar” for low wages not reported by businesses to the state, which Kaul says is also an issue in Wisconsin.

Others who work with victims of sex trafficking told us at the event Chicago and Minneapolis are huge pipelines for trafficking and some of those victims end up in Northeast Wisconsin.

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