Chippewa Falls High School hosts human trafficking awareness event – WEAU

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (WEAU) – Thursday, Chippewa Falls High School partners with Fierce Freedom to present a human trafficking awareness event.

With the nationwide rise of human trafficking, Chippewa Falls school district officials wants the community to be in the know.

“The Cardinal Community Learning Center decided to partner with Fierce Freedom this past fall because we wanted to make a positive difference,” said Cardinal Community Learning Center director Ann Zenner. “When you watch the news, you see that human trafficking is on the rise, so we decided to partner with them and bring awareness to our own community.”

The rise in local occurrences of human trafficking was surprising to many, including Fierce Freedom staff members.

“I was one of those people that though it was just international, but we've had conversations with survivors that really tell the story of, no, it's happening locally,” said Fierce Freedom community program coordinator Cat Morgan. “Small towns that you meet your trafficker, and you know, maybe it becomes something where they travel over state lines, but again, it can happen right here, and it does happen right here. That's the reality of it.”

Morgan spoke to Chippewa Valley natives about warning signs and assistance methods, with the goal of changing perceptions on human trafficking.

“Human trafficking, it's a relational problem. Often it's going to be an exploitation of vulnerability and it's going to be through often a trusted relationship, and so it doesn't really look like the white van, right?” Morgan stated. “It doesn't always look like an abduction.”

As children become ever more online, Morgan laid out warning signs for potential grooming scenarios.

“Maybe they've become really hostile or aggressive, like there's a personality shift and it's not a normal thing for them,” she said. “They may also stress whenever they receive a notification on their phone, they may really quickly change screens.”

Above all, Morgan and Fierce Freedom hope these seminars faciliate the spreading of this information, as tackling human trafficking will be a community wide effort.

“We can't do it alone. We can't fight this alone,” she said. “It's about the collective impact, and that's going to take all of us identifying what can I do, and doing it.”

For more information on Fierce Freedom's efforts, as well as the organization's event schedule, follow the link here.

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