Encyclopedia Dubuque
"Encyclopedia Dubuque is the online authority for all things Dubuque, written by the people who know the city best.”
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Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.
SET FREE DUBUQUE
SET FREE DUBUQUE. In 2021 Set Free Dubuque, a social service organization, worked with victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. One of its areas of concern was HUMAN TRAFFICKING where perpetrators used coercion, force, or fraud to exploit victims.
In 2019 the National Human Trafficking Hotline received 98 reports of cases of sex and labor trafficking in Iowa, 267 in Illinois, and 94 in Wisconsin. The data was collected by Polaris Project, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. While information for 2020 was not available in early 2021, national figures pre-PANDEMIC indicated that the number of crisis trafficking incidents reports had increased more than 40% nationally from about 60 in April, 2019 to 90 in April, 2020. Situations in which people required emergency shelter nearly doubled from 29 to 54.
Local authorities indicated a rise is human trafficking during the pandemic due to social distancing and unemployment. These conditions left victims with less opportunity to report their conditions to social service agencies.
Those who had questions could call the Friends of the Family crisis line at 1-800-410-7233. Reports of human trafficking or calls for help could also be made to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center at 1-888-373-7888 or by texting the message "HELP" or "INFO" to 233733.
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Source:
Goldstein, Bennet, "Agencies Report Increase in Trafficking Cases," Telegraph Herald, January 13, 2021, p. 1A
