COLORADO ROTARY CLUBS PLAY A ROLE IN FIGHTING HUMAN TRAFFICKING

(For more information about the Rotary Grant, go to www.bosniaglobalgrant.com)

Fighting human trafficking has become one of the most passionate causes of many in these past several years.  Media exposure of the suffering of victims of sex trafficking and labor slavery has raised the issue to new awareness and the extreme economic differences between and within countries have provided traffickers their opportunities to make a buck. Lack of education of girls and boys and local corruption and lack of prosecution of traffickers are often cited in US State Department reports as a cause, as well.

 An academic center at the University of Denver to study, assemble data, and advocate has been established, the only center of its sort in the world.  Several Grand County high school students have made advocacy against trafficking their cause.  A $45,000 Rotary grant, championed by Denver Rotary and  supported by eleven Rotary clubs, including Winter Park/Fraser, Granby, Grand Lake,  Kremmling , Summit (Frisco) and Breckenridge Mountain clubs,  with matching funds from Rotary International and  a Rotary district, have provided resources  to aid a  non- profit Bosnian organization, Novi Put,  and Mostar (Bosnia)  Rotary Club to combat trafficking  in Bosnia. 

Girls (and boys)  are lured into jobs or  hooked by traffickers on drugs,  and are set to work in sweat shops or become virtual slaves as domestic help, getting little or no pay.  They may even be trapped or tricked into becoming sex workers and find no way to escape.

 The Denver District Attorney’s Office even has an assistant DA assigned to prosecute traffickers and the Denver police department has a focus as well.  Last year, the Colorado state legislature passed laws to make it easier for law enforcement to prosecute traffickers in Colorado and a privately funded safe house was set up in northern Colorado to provide refuge and rehabilitation of victims.

In Colorado, runaway teens are often victims of traffickers who lure them into prostitution with promises of drugs and escape from the streets.  Mexican and Central American coyotes sneak undocumented workers into the US.   Victims find work that in no way fit the job description that was advertised.

 Bosnia is ranked by the US State Department as one of the worst actors in combatting trafficking and is on par with the Ukraine, Cambodia, and Burma and others in the mid-East, Asia, and Latin America.  Bosnian girls in rural areas rarely have education past the 4^th grade. Roma (gypsy) girls (100,000 of them in a country with a population similar to Colorado) are mostly illiterate.  Their economy is the worst in Europe, never having recovered from the devastating wars of ethnic cleansing in the 1990’s.  Corruption plagues the country and there has been virtually no prosecution of traffickers.  The Rotary grant is aimed at encouraging  Bosnian girls to stay in school, setting up literacy training for Roma, training and organizing  university student volunteers to mentor families with girls at risk, and conducting a public information campaign. Kicking off the grant implementation with a visit to Bosnia in September were Rotarians from Denver, Summit , and  Granby Rotary clubs.

A version of this appeared in the www.skyhidailynews.com  January 29, 2015 and in the print edition January 30, 2015

For continuing updates of the grant's progress, more information about the grant itself, pictures and press, see    www.bosniaglobalgrant.com            

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humantraffickingcenter.org
http://humantraffickingcenter.org/posts-by-htc-associates/perspectives-human-trafficking-conference-recap/

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_26429075/colorados-new-human-trafficking-laws-aimed-boost-convictions