Assignment:
Like Emergency Management, Human Trafficking does not have the support it really needs and when issues do come up, it can take years for victims to fully recover, much like communities take years to recover after a disaster. Although you cannot plan emergency events, you can mitigate them and make preparations for areas that have disasters. Human trafficking happens in plain sight yet many people are ignorant of its existence so if you deny its existence, how can you even begin to solve this issue.
Much like how the authors described long-standing issues caused by fundamental conflicts and inconsistencies, human trafficking cannot be eliminated by having better educated and trained public safety officials. Laws and policies regarding human trafficking need to be updated.
During my research, I discovered that although there are federal laws about human trafficking, many of these laws are recommendations, not requirements. For example, there are 14 states that mandate hotels and other lodging facilities to have human trafficking awareness signs. 14 out of 50! That is ridiculous. There are 12 that recommend having these signs but now that is half of the United States that even identify this as a concern. There are only 17 states that recommend lodging employees receive training to identify human trafficking but it should be mandatory, for all 50 states (Unpacking Human Trafficking, 2019). This is just a fraction of what should be done. What about restaurants? What about medical facilities. Oh just you wait until you see my final paper. I almost regret even beginning this topic. How disgusting this plague of human suffering really is.
There is a unified way to handle emergency management and FEMA is the authority and assistant. I have not been able to find any federal agency that handles human trafficking specifically. There are many international and local organizations that have dedicated themselves to handling this problem but the biggest issue with this, besides money, is the lack of training in all areas, including police, EMS, hospital and medical staff, and even the court systems.
There are manuals, books, and even articles about emergency management but there are only stories in newspapers about human trafficking. There is no such thing as a "How to" book to handle human trafficking. With millions of people throughout the world, I am very surprised we are not doing enough. Especially since the United States is one of the biggest offenders in all of this.
References
Unpacking Human Trafficking. (2019).
Trainor, J. E., & Subbio, T. (2020). CRITICAL ISSUES IN DISASTER SCIENCE AND MANAGEMENT.