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Prayer service honors National Human Trafficking Awareness Month

Posted at 6:51 AM, Jan 10, 2020
and last updated 2020-01-10 11:56:54-05

JESSAMINE COUNTY, Ky. (LEX 18) — In recognition of Human Trafficking Awareness Month, a prayer service will be held Friday at Bethel Harvest Church in Nicholasville.

It is being hosted by Refuge for Women Kentucky, an organization dedicated to providing long-term care for women who have escaped human trafficking.

The National Human Trafficking Hotline has gotten hundreds of thousands of calls over the last decade. When you break down the numbers, Kentucky ranks somewhere in the middle when it comes to reported cases.

In 2017, there were 81 reported human trafficking cases in Kentucky. That number jumped to 141 reported cases in 2018. Since 2007, the National Human Trafficking Hotline tracked 562 total reported cases in Kentucky.

The most common type of human trafficking is sex trafficking, followed by labor trafficking. In Kentucky in 2018, 61 reported cases involved adults and 39 cases involved children.

According to Polaris, some indications of human trafficking could be poor physical health, like poor hygiene or signs of abuse, and abnormal behavior, like being depressed, submissive, or fearful. Other signs are a lack of control. The victim may be frequently monitored or not able to control their own money or personal documents, like a passport.

Other signs include a victim not knowing where they are, losing a sense of time, or sharing scripted or inconsistent stories.

If you suspect someone is a victim of human trafficking, you can call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 888-373-7888 or find information on the group's website.