\u00a0is a statewide initiative to raise awareness and empower Mississippi businesses to combat human trafficking. It is open to any business, nonprofit organization, or association in the State of Mississippi that is interested in promoting human trafficking awareness both internally and externally.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nIn the welcome by JSU Acting President Elayne H. Anthony, she stated, \u201cWe\u2019re very pleased to be a part of this because we see it is very important for our community. We want our community to remain safe.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nSecretary of State Watson gave opening remarks and an introduction of the keynote speaker, Brian Montgomery.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cWhen I learned about the stories they were talking about, one was out of Lincoln County and it was about a grandfather who was trafficking his granddaughter for drug money and it stuck with me and it hurt because I\u2019m a father of three little girls. So when I think about something happening to small little girl and little boys\u2026it really hurts my heart. I couldn\u2019t help but to get involved with this topic,\u201d explained Watson.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nHe added, \u201cWe worked a great deal with Speaker (Philip) Gunn and several other legislators to get a lot of legislation passed in the state senate and the state house and on to be signed by the Governor. But more importantly than just the legislative piece, but the knowledge that evolved to all of us in the legislature and the idea that we need to spread this and make sure people are aware of what\u2019s going on.\u00a0 And it really just kind of grew out of that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nWatson explained that MBAT programs not only offer training to employees at the over 100 businesses who are members, but the summits allow the organization to be active within the communities and spread the word about the seriousness of human trafficking even farther.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cYou need to be looking for trafficking everywhere, not just your convenience store or truck stops. It\u2019s everywhere you\u2019re going to be,\u201d said Watson<\/span><\/p>\nAn overview of human trafficking was presented by JSU Professor and Hinds County Sheriff\u2019s Department Lieutenant Kevin Lavine.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nLavine began the overview with a definition of human trafficking, which is a serious crime and violation of human rights involving force, coercion, or fraud to exploit a person into slave or sexual exploitation.<\/span><\/p>\nLavine, who stated that human trafficking is multi-billion-dollar industry, reported that most people think that trafficking comes with certain criteria and always involves sexual exploitation, but labor trafficking is also a serious human trafficking issue.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cBelieve it or not, it doesn\u2019t matter about your age, race, physical appearance and make up, we are all vulnerable,\u201d said Lavine. \u201cYou are more vulnerable when you are apathetic.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nAccording to Lavine, women are often used for sexual exploitation and men are typically used for forced labor. Although this is the case in most instances, this is not for every situation.<\/span><\/p>\nLavine stressed that police, businesses and the community must work hand in hand to combat human trafficking.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cWe cannot just police our way out of this, we have to have our community stakeholders and forums like this help us to bring factual information that we can all take back and share with our employees and our community,\u201d said Lavine.<\/span><\/p>\nThe United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime has listed a series of indications that help people identify victims of human trafficking. These indicators include:<\/span><\/p>\n\n- \n
\n- Appearing malnourished<\/span><\/li>\n
- Appearing injured or having signs of injury or physical abuse<\/span><\/li>\n
- Avoiding eye contact, social interactions and law enforcement<\/span><\/li>\n
- Responding in manners that seem rehearsed or scripted<\/span><\/li>\n
- Lacking personal identification documents<\/span><\/li>\n
- Lacking personal possessions<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Situational awareness will only not save you, but also the victims from being further harmed. Be sure to ask questions and report anything that seems suspicious.<\/span><\/p>\nLavine stressed that private citizens should never try to intervene if human trafficking is suspected, they should contact local authorities who are trained to handle these situations.<\/span><\/p>\nNext, keynote speaker Brian Montgomery gave an emotional testimonial about his son Walker, who was a victim of sextortion, another component of trafficking. Walker was a 16-year-old student who played football and enjoyed the presence of people.<\/span><\/p>\nBrian told the audience that on the night of Dec. 1, 2022, Walker received an Instagram direct message from someone pretending to be a young girl from his school. One thing led to another and the conversation led to Walker sending the person explicit information of himself.<\/span><\/p>\nThe trafficker in return wanted $5,000, threatening to expose the information to friends on his social media contact lists. Walker begged them not to release the footage. When he refused to send the money requested, the traffickers told him that they sent the information to friends and if he didn\u2019t comply, they would send the explicit information to his mother.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nAccording to the emotional father, his son, unable to deal with the threat of his mother seeing the information, committed suicide. The hackers, although never caught,\u00a0 have been traced to Nigeria.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI think it\u2019s easy to think that these types of problems only attack the people that find themselves in those situations. That\u2019s not the case,\u201d said the Brian Montgomery.<\/span><\/p>\nBrian hopes that his son\u2019s story can be shared and also encourages parents to take extra precautions when it comes to the safety of their children.<\/span><\/p>\nNext, a panel discussion was held that included: Dana Hunter, executive director of Louisiana\u2019s Governor\u2019s Office of Human Trafficking; Matt Bogue, vice president of Dutch Oil Company\/Sprint Mart; Deputy Helen Brown, CEO of No More Tears, an organization that empowers as well as guides victims of human trafficking and domestic violence; and Joy Jones, director of the Office Against Interpersonal Violence.<\/span><\/p>\nThe panel offered more information on recognizing and reporting suspected human trafficking situations.<\/span><\/p>\nChief Horton was pleased that JSU was able to host the event.<\/span><\/p>\n“I want to make\u00a0every\u00a0effort to educate our students as well as our faculty and staff about human trafficking. I am thankful that Michael Watson, Secretary of State, brought the Mississippi\u00a0Businesses Against Trafficking (MBAT) summit to the JSU campus. Businesses play an integral part of helping to identify victims of human\u00a0trafficking by working with local, county, and state law enforcement agencies as they are often the ‘eyes and ears’ of the community as they have first-hand knowledge of human trafficking occurrences around their places of business,\u201d said Horton. \u201cWe (law enforcement) are appreciative of their involvement by simply\u00a0contacting law enforcement.\u00a0JSU Department of Public Safety will continue working with Mr. Watson’s office to\u00a0help share the knowledge of the dangers and impact of human trafficking in our community”.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nHorton added, “I feel it is our\u00a0(JSU Department of Public Safety) responsibility\u00a0to help educate our campus community about human trafficking. If any student ever finds\u00a0themselves in a human situation, we encourage them to contact the JSU Department of Public Safety and report it immediately and provide\u00a0as much\u00a0information as possible:\u00a0If you see something or hear something, please, say something.”<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Watson, Mississippi Secretary of State during the MBAT Summit Shakell James Staff Writer The Mississippi Businesses Against Trafficking (MBAT) Summit was held on April…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":11880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_plus_post_options":"{}","editor_plus_copied_stylings":"{}","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11879"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11885,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11879\/revisions\/11885"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}