Rockville High Students Get a Lesson in 21st Century Slavery - Vernon, CT Patch

Rockville High Students Get a Lesson in 21st Century Slavery - Vernon, CT Patch:

'via Blog this'

...The program was the creation of School Resource Officer Early Middleton with the help of Vernon Police Det. Donald Skewes. Middleton said the problem hit home when he discovered two local girls he suspected to be at-risk were involved.

Two presentations were given by Love 146 representatives. The school day started with the assembly for freshmen and sophomores, and by 9:30 AM juniors and seniors got their turn.

Von-Oy asked the RHS underclassmen if they’d ever heard of human trafficking. By a raise of hands, most of the students acknowledged that yes, they had. Von-Oy asked a couple of those students how they heard of it.

“In New York,” one responded.

“The movies,” another said.

Hiebert told the students sitting inside Rockville High’s auditorium that what they were talking about is modern day slavery.

“Human trafficking is simply the buying and selling of people for profit,” he said.

He gave them these numbers to compare:

• Historically, 13 million slaves were sold out of Africa over a 300-year period.

• Now, there are 27 million slaves around the world.

Hiebert said slaves are still used today to harvest things like chocolate, cotton and coffee, and the sex trade industry could pass the drug trade within the next 10 years.

To put the numbers in perspective for the groups of students, Hiebert reiterated a stat that was given in a short video he played. Every minute, two children are trafficked.

He said, “That’s 120 children during this presentation.”

The math would equal roughly 240 children trafficked between both presentations.

Von-Oy discussed more local human trafficking issues with Rockville students. She explained that Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, or CSEC, includes prostitution, stripping and pornography. Von-Oy focused this aspect of the presentation heavily on internet use.

“How many of your Facebook profiles are set to private?” Von-Oy asked with little response, especially from the junior and senior group.

“The internet is like the new ‘streets,’” she said, and then she compared having an open Facebook profile to Christmas shopping in a J.C. Penny catalogue. She said people can just flip through and pick out what they want.