Hope for Justice has helped four children to safety after the car they were being transported in was intercepted by a law enforcement officer who we had trained.
Our team of licensed investigators were notified of the situation in the Western United States by a law enforcement officer and a US family services professional, who had both been trained by our teams.
The officer had conducted a traffic stop and identified four unaccompanied minors in the vehicle, all aged between three and 14.
The children told the officer that they had walked in the desert for days before being picked up by a man they did not know.
Each child was due to be taken to a different location in the United States to meet with various ‘family’ members, yet most of the children knew very little about the location or person they were going to.
Richard Schoeberl, Hope for Justice’s U.S. Team Leader for Investigations & Training, said: “This has been a common pattern, whereby unaccompanied minors found in similar situations to this, are then trafficked for labor or sex.”
Just weeks before, we had delivered High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) training to the officer and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) representative involved in this case.
Hope for Justice delivers HIDTA training to law enforcement
During the training, our instructors had discussed migrant trafficking routes and drug cartels’ use of smuggling routes for both humans and drugs.
We deliver HIDTA training because of the nexus between human trafficking and drug trafficking. The perpetrators are often the same people; drug traffickers are looking to increase their profits and control by using trafficking routes for drugs, labor, sex and violence.
Both of the professionals contacted Hope for Justice to ask for assistance with locating a safe place for the children to be taken while their situations are investigated further.
We worked with a number of agencies in several states before eventually identifying an agency that could assist the Department of Human Services with the placement of the children.
The investigation is still active, so we are unable to provide further information at this time.
You can find out more about Hope for Justice’s training in the USA here: Human trafficking training (USA & Canada) | Hope for Justice.
