By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
ST. JOSEPH, Mo. — As Human Trafficking Awareness month comes to an end people should continue to show awareness and know the signs of potential trafficking.
Federal officials from the Department of Homeland Security made a presentation in St. Joseph.
Unit Supervisor Scott Titus says one sign people may see in youth that are being trafficked is a disconnection from family.
"More recently disconnected from family, sudden changes in behaviorisms, if they go from doing exceptionally well in school to not being related to school or kind of disconnecting from friends as well," Titus tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "Often times we'll find unexplainable bruising on the arms, neck, legs, places that bruising just shouldn't normally occur."
Titus says victims will also not be in charge of their own passport or even financials and can be seen looking to their trafficker for confirmation on financial decisions.
Acting Special Agent in Charge Taekuk Cho says when people hear about trafficking, they think about it happening in continents such as Africa or Southeast Asia
"However, this happens in the United States, we just don't see it it's normally out of sight out of mind," Cho says. "Because this is such a threat, not only to public safety, but really national security because transnational criminal organizations, the cartels, are taking part in this illegal activity."
Cho says the involvement of the cartels and other criminal organizations is what makes his department a part of investigating these instances of trafficking.
The growing problem of human trafficking can happen anywhere, no matter the size of the town.
While Kansas City is ranked the fifth largest spot for occurrences of trafficking, cases are also being seen in small towns like Harrisonville, Missouri.
Titus says cases of human trafficking are happening anywhere and everywhere.
"It's not necessarily that it's more common in a small town, with that being said, you typically have more eyes in larger towns constantly watching for it, more training, more resources readily available," Titus explains. "In smaller towns those resources aren't nearly as available, not as many opportunities for federal law enforcement training or state local assistant training, so it's not as readily watched."
