By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
Options Domestic and Sexual Violence Services along with the Options' Students Advisory Council sponsored a Freedom Walk Saturday on Vine Street in Hays to being awareness to human trafficking.
The advisory council is made up of Hays High School students.
"We're trying to bring awareness to human trafficking," Deserea Stover, Options outreach advocate, said. "I think it is very overlooked in smaller towns, but it is happening."
Stover said she thought it is important for young people to be aware of the issue. They are potential victims, or they may be able to identify trafficking among their peers.
Morgan Hart, Options volunteer specialist, said he thought involving youth in awareness campaigns early can be a means of preventing human trafficking.
Most people are introduced into the sex trade between the ages of 12 and 17, Stover said.
Rylee Burd, HHS junior, is the student leader of the advisory group.
"It is something I have always been interested, and I think it something that other people should learn more about and be aware of," she said. ...
"I think it is a very bad stereotype that people only think it happens in big cities, and they don't think it is something that can happen in Hays, but it is a very real possibility of something like that happening."
Options worked two human trafficking cases in northwest Kansas in 2020. Interstate 70 also has been identified as a corridor along which human trafficking victims are moved.
Read more on a human trafficking session offered by ICTSOS in Hays on Monday's Hays Post.
