“Right now, in the hotels across this city, there are juveniles and adult women being forced into prostitution. This is not something happening somewhere else, this is something happening to our children,” said Michelle Morgan, Assistant Attorney General, at a recent sex trafficking forum in Philadelphia.

Law enforcers, social workers, nonprofit staff and faith leaders gathered at the Salvation Army on October 15, 2015 to discuss the ongoing challenges and strategies to tackle human trafficking in Pennsylvania and the United States.

The one-day forum, “Engaging Faith Communities: Ending Human Trafficking,” focused on how communities can be harnessed to tackle the issue through spreading awareness and calling the national hotline number, 1-888-373-7888, if human-trafficking is suspected.

Human trafficking is now commonly known as “modern day slavery” as victims are lured in with promises of love and money from a perpetrator and then trapped through psychological, emotional and physical abuse and eventually manipulated into becoming prostitutes. The current average age of entry of an American sex-trafficking victim is a heart-breaking 13 years old.

To get involved contact Gail Hambleton at [email protected] and join the Safe Haven Campaign and see how you can become a Safe Haven.