the Washington, D.C. metro area. Initial Google searches of key law enforcement and public health websites returned a long list of major human trafficking cases nationwide over just the past two years. Iowa is one of several key states that has aggressively


undertaken the fight against human trafficking. In an effort to identify, disrupt and report crimes, school districts there are providing special training to every school bus driver by the end of the 2018-2019 school year. It is expected, and hoped, that those Iowa school bus


drivers will serve as a citizen mobile army that will help save students from being snatched into the trafficking nightmare, since they are so well-positioned to see these cases first. Tose 9,000 extra pairs of trained eyes will then be more capable of seeing suspicious cases. Max Christensen, head of school transportation services at the Iowa Department of Education, recently presented the anti-trafficking program to 165 attendees at the Iowa Pupil Transportation Association’s annual summer conference. “Everybody in that room was just riveted to the presentation, because you don’t think about this problem, especially in relation to school buses,” Christensen recalled.


QUANTIFYING THE PROBLEM & TAKING ACTION Nationwide, more accurate official statistics are


Trafficking Program Seek Alliances with the School Bus Industry


Anti-Human WRITTEN BY DAVID GEORGE | DAVID@STNONLINE.COM


driver seat. Busing on the Lookout (BOTL),


A


part of the Truckers Against Trafficking (TAT) program, says schools and school bus operations have a place on the front lines of combating the epidemic. Te program, which was discussed at NASDPTS on Sunday, aims to provide school bus drivers with the tools to report incidents when “something isn’t quite right.” Human trafficking, the second-largest


criminal activity in the world behind drug trafficking, according to authorities, is the exploitation of humans via force, fraud or coercion, to provide forced labor or commercial sex. Experts stress that traffickers will stop at nothing to make a victim comply, obey and remain under their control. Tere are approximately 20 to 40


mid a well-publicized increase in sex and human trafficking globally, unsung heroes may be sitting in the school bus


million human trafficking victims globally, according to various sources. Given that number, thousands of victims are believed to be school students in North America. Since about half of all American school children ride a school bus daily, drivers have multiple points of contact every week, month after month, year after year. What has traditionally been an


overseas problem affecting mostly developing nations, or written about in history books, is aggressively returning. For instance, on just one day recently in Michigan, Sept. 26, a missing juvenile sweep by law enforcement focused on identifying sex trafficking victims. During that eight-hour operation, 107 juveniles were recovered safely, officials reported. Ten in June, a Nashville man, aka


“Low Low,” was convicted of human trafficking crimes involving under-14- year-olds. And last year, an FBI task force


recovered 50 juveniles from human/sex traffickers who were transiting through


14 THE SHOW REPORTER • OCT 26-31, 2018


improving the public’s understanding of the problem. Te William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 now requires the FBI to collect human trafficking offense data. Te act specifies distinguishing between prostitution, assisting or promoting prostitution, and purchasing prostitution. As reported in the U.S. Department of Education’s


January 2015 study, “Human Trafficking in America’s Schools,” the International Labor Organization estimated that children represented 26 percent (or 5.5 million) of the 20.9 million victims worldwide in 2012. Since then, other reliable sources indicate that these numbers have continued to increase each year. Ten in February 2018, President Trump signed the


Department of Homeland Security Blue Campaign Authorization Act, which focuses on fighting human trafficking.


SCHOOL BUS INDUSTRY JOINS THE FIGHT “For school bus drivers, I see this as multi-faceted,” said


Annie Sovcik, Esq., program director for BOTL. “Much of the training focus for them is on student safety. It falls within broader training and guidance that many of them are receiving as mandatory reporters of abuse and neglect,” she told School Transportation News. Sovcik reports that school bus drivers may observe potential criminal activity at gas stations, truck stops or rest areas while transporting their students. Driver trainers have emphasized to her that students are also susceptible to potential kidnapping while they are waiting for the bus during field trips or sports events. “Human trafficking and the role school bus drivers can


play in identifying and reporting it” are intertwined to a large extent, she said. Tat’s because school bus drivers are “in a critical position to play an integral role in combating the domestic sex trafficking that is taking place.” Sovcik stressed that most children are vulnerable to the manipulative and forceful methods employed by traffickers. Children who are in foster care, who are homeless or live in abusive homes, are particularly susceptible. “Some children do continue to attend school, even as they are


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