Summary

Council declares January Human Trafficking Awareness Month and recognizes efforts to highlight its impact

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Councilmembers are joined by representatives of community organizations after declaring January Human Trafficking Awareness Month in King County. (l-r) Emma Catague, retired Executive Director of API Chaya, Councilmembers Joe McDermott, Kathy Lambert and Jeanne Kohl-Welles, former State Representative Velma Veloria, Councilmember Dave Upthegrove, Dr. Sutapa Basu, Executive Director of the UW Women's Center, Johnna White, UW’s Women’s Center, Councilmembers Larry Gossett and Claudia Balducci.

The Metropolitan King County Council today declared January Human Trafficking Awareness Month in recognition that trafficking in persons is now the world’s second-largest and fastest-growing underground economy.

“Our regional, local and state leaders and many organizations have been at the front of the battle against human trafficking for two decades,” said Councilmember Jeanne Kohl-Welles, a co-sponsor of the proclamation. “The scourge of these crimes continues, but thanks to the early and continuing efforts of Emma Catague, Velma Veloria, and Sutapa Basu, among others, we have powerful tools to use in fighting these horrors and inhumanities.”

“King County offers resources to victims of human trafficking that can be accessed throughout our region,” said proclamation co-sponsor Council Vice Chair Reagan Dunn. “It’s our hope that in working to promote awareness of this heinous crime we’re able to reach someone in need.”

Legislation introduced by former State Representative Velma Veloria made Washington the first state in the country to create an anti-trafficking task force in 2002 and to criminalize human trafficking in 2003. As a member of the State Senate in 2002, Kohl-Welles sponsored legislation signed into law that provides protection to immigrants who come to Washington to marry residents through the services of international marriage brokers, which were found to be problematic in leaving people vulnerable to exploitation.

King County has been a leader in the effort to end human trafficking. Law enforcement agencies and prosecutors in King County work closely with the Washington Anti-Trafficking Network (WARN), a coalition of non-governmental organizations that provides direct services to survivors of human trafficking in Washington state, assisting them on their path to restoration and recovery.

This effort has grown through the establishment of the King County’s Commercially Sexually Exploited Children (“CSEC”) Task Force to help ensure the safety of young people who are survivors of sexual exploitation. In addition, the King County Prosecutors Office established the “Buyer’s Beware Program” with the Organization of Prostitution Survivors.

King County continues to work with NGO’s, such as API Chaya, Coalition of Immigrants, Refugees & Communities of Color, and Seattle Against Slavery.

King County has worked with both Clear Channel Outdoors, a division of Clear Channel Communications, and Titan Media to highlight the need to fight human trafficking through billboards that provided information on how to contact agencies that helped individuals escape trafficking.

Veloria and representatives of community organizations doing work in King County to address the issue of human trafficking were present to accept the proclamation.

Each year, API Chaya, a local organization providing services to survivors of sexual and domestic violence, exploitation, and human trafficking, holds a candlelight vigil commemorating the 1995 shooting of Susana Remerata Blackwell, her unborn child, and friends Phoebe Dizon and Veronica Laureta, who were killed by Ms. Blackwell’s estranged and abusive husband inside the King County Courthouse. Following the forced servitude case of Helen Clemente in 1999 and the murder of Anastasia Solovieva-King in 2000, King County has been active in working with the state Legislature in finding ways to reduce and aid the survivors of trafficking.

A 2013 report from the International Labour Organization estimates that nearly 27 million men, women and children are victims of various forms of trafficking, such as forced labor, sexual exploitation, debt bondage, and forced marriages, each year worldwide. Shining a bright light on these crimes and educating the public is one way we can work to eradicate these types of crimes.

 WHEREAS, the month of January has been recognized as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month since 2011, when President Obama’s proclamation brought national attention to the crime and extent of human trafficking; and

WHEREAS, trafficking in persons is now the world’s second largest and fastest growing underground economy, and disproportionately affects immigrants, refugees, American Indians, Alaska Natives, and other communities of color; and

WHEREAS, human trafficking includes forced labor, sexual exploitation, commercial sexual exploitation of minors, debt bondage, and forced marriage by use of fraud or coercion, all of which nearly always involve the threat and use of violence against the victims, increasing these crimes’ insidious nature; and

WHEREAS, Susana Remerata Blackwell, her unborn child, and friends Phoebe Dizon and Veronica Laureta were killed in 1995 by Ms. Blackwell’s estranged and abusive husband inside the King County Courthouse, and in 1999, Anastasia Solovieva from Kyrgyzstan was murdered by her husband in Washington State in a separate incident of human trafficking, these tragedies sparking nationwide media attention and a movement to find ways to reduce human trafficking and aid the survivors of human trafficking; and

WHEREAS, the University of Washington Women's Center, led by Dr. Sutapa Basu, and alongside organizations working with immigrants, refugees and communities of color, in 2001 began convening a conference on human trafficking in Washington State and led efforts in 2002 creating in statute the nation’s first state task force against the trafficking of persons; and

WHEREAS, in 2003, due to the work of the task force and the tireless efforts of Emma Catague and the leadership of State Representative Velma Veloria, Washington State became the first state in the United States to criminalize human trafficking and continues to be a worldwide leader in adopting some of the most comprehensive laws against these heinous crimes; and

WHEREAS, King County has long been a hotspot in the international trafficking of persons, due to our region’s ports, proximity to Canada, Sea-Tac International Airport, and access to Interstate 5; and

WHEREAS, in January 2013, King County launched a public awareness campaign to highlight the fight against human trafficking, using advertisements on Metro buses, billboards, radio, and TV to inform victims and the public that help is available; and

WHEREAS, King County staff, law enforcement officers, and prosecutors participate in programs to rescue trafficking victims;

NOW, THEREFORE, we, the Metropolitan King County Council, proclaim the month of January 2018 as

in King County to call attention to this devastating issue, recognize those people and organizations that fight daily against the scourge of human trafficking, and encourage others to educate and engage themselves in all that can be done to combat these terrible crimes.

DATED this twenty-ninth day of January, 2018.