Human Trafficking: Prevention Education for K-12 in Florida

By: Ashley Mejía

The state of Florida ranks third in the United States as a hotspot for human trafficking after California and Texas. Within Florida, the Central Florida area ranks third behind Miami and Tampa for the most cases of human trafficking. A new Florida law aims to reduce these grim statistics by educating children about risks and sources of help.

In 2019 alone, the National Human Trafficking Hotline received 617 calls from victims and survivors of human trafficking in the state of Florida, a number that likely represents a small fraction of actual cases. Approximately 40 million people are trafficked on a global scale every year.

Human trafficking is any forced or coerced labor that results in involuntary servitude, exploitation, debt bondage, or slavery. Many forms of human trafficking exist, such as labor trafficking, commercial sexual exploitation of children, sex trafficking, and child labor. Human trafficking is, in effect, modern-day slavery.

Human trafficking can involve victims of any age, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or socio-economic status, but traffickers prey especially on the most vulnerable groups, such as undocumented workers, runaway and homeless youth, individuals involved with the child welfare system, individuals with substance abuse or addictions, and low-income individuals.

On June 11, 2021, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation CB HB 519 mandating the provision of comprehensive, developmentally appropriate, and age-appropriate K-12 health education instruction in all public schools across Florida.

This comprehensive health education curriculum will include instructions that focus on the prevention of child sexual abuse, exploitation, and human trafficking. The CB/ HB519 legislation, which took effect on July 1, 2021, was sponsored by Florida Representative Clay Yarborough and Florida Senator Aaron Bean.

According to the new law, the human trafficking curriculum must, at a minimum, teach children how to recognize signs of human trafficking, and how to identify resources, including national, state, and local resources. The curriculum will also include information on the prevalence and nature of human trafficking, strategies to reduce the risk of human trafficking, techniques for setting healthy boundaries and how to safely seek assistance, and information on how traffickers exploit social media and mobile device applications. Health education in public schools has long included lessons on the dangers of alcohol, nicotine, and drugs.

In this sense, the new curriculum will extend these lessons to cover how such substances can be used to lure children in or cultivate dependency.

Implementing human trafficking education in our schools can create a safer environment and increase students’ chances for academic, social, and psychological success. With the passing of this law, Florida became the first state to mandate that all students in K-12 public schools receive human trafficking prevention education in the United States.

The new legislation builds on the educational efforts that non-profit organizations across Florida have already been providing to combat human trafficking. Such organizations have been raising awareness and offering relevant educational resources to our communities. Central Florida’s very own non-profit organization, Paving the Way Foundation, focuses on providing educational resources to youth, parents, teachers, and community leaders about child trafficking and online exploitation by explaining the impact that it has on children and the actions that one can take to prevent it. Their founder and president, Jan Edwards, commented on the new law: “Paving the Way Foundation is thrilled to see that the state of Florida signed the CB/HB519 bill into a law that will help students in Florida recognize the signs of human trafficking and giving them the information and resources that they need to protect themselves against modern-day slavery.”

Since 2016, Paving the Way Foundation has educated over 14,000 youth, parents, teachers, and community leaders by visiting public schools and educating children and teachers, providing monthly online parent tech talks in English and Spanish, providing monthly awareness education, creating parenting toolkits and guides, and sharing resources on social media platforms.

Human trafficking is a community-wide issue. No single group can combat it alone. We must unite as a community to protect loved ones from becoming victims of human trafficking. Prevention education about human trafficking will raise awareness about the existence of the problem and equip people to educate other community members about it.

If you or someone that you know has been a victim of human trafficking, please call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-3737-888 to speak with a specially trained Anti-Trafficking Hotline Advocate. Calls can be made anonymously and are available in 200 languages.