Raising Awareness the Right Way

By Samantha Searls, Program Manager

As chair of the Public Education and Awareness (PEA) Committee of our local anti-human trafficking coalition, End Slavery Cincinnati, IJPC plays a integral role in Cincinnati’s efforts to end trafficking. Earlier this year, our efforts were noticed when leaders from the Ohio Attorney General’s Human Trafficking Initiative asked us to put together an informational “Do’s and Don’ts” document to be used by multiple state partners.

The PEA Committee has done great work to address the problems of public and media narrative, as well as issues surrounding imagery and language. The work had been so well received that we summarized it in “The Do’s and Don’ts of Human Trafficking Awareness,” now available to read on our website.

With this resource, we hope to pivot from focusing on images depicting suffering and abuse, to images focused on resilience, survival, strength, and hope. We hope to shift the mainstream narrative from focusing on the pain and blame of victims and survivors, to focus on the systems of exploitation that allow trafficking to happen in the first place.

If you are passionate about changing the way we tell the story of trafficking, please join PEA’s efforts. Meetings are on the second Monday of each month at 9:30 AM.  Email peacommittee.esc@gmail.com to RSVP and receive the Zoom link.