Daily Local News: Costello to host forum on human trafficking
March 20, 2015
In The News
EAST WHITELAND >>The practice of human trafficking will be the subject of a forum organized by U.S. Rep. Ryan Costello, R-6th, of West Chester on Friday, along with experts in the field.
Costello has made the issue among his priorities since joining Congress earlier this year. In one of his first speeches on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, he noted how in Pennsylvania there were reported 82 incidents of human trafficking cases in 2014 and a reported 426 calls of human trafficking violations, despite the state to enacting stricter human trafficking laws.
“Our work on this issue, though, is far from over,” Costello said in his Jan. 27 speech. “Legislation this week takes important steps in the right direction, by streamlining law enforcement resources. It enhances victim services, and it criminalizes those who knowingly advertise the commercial exploitation of children.”
Approximately 300,000 young Americans are in danger of becoming victims of sex trafficking, according to figures reported by Costello’s office. The average age of young girls who fall prey to sex traffickers is 12-14. Each year, human trafficking perpetrators and their degenerate clientele account for $9.8 billion of economic activity in the United States alone, and human trafficking is second only to drug trafficking as the most profitable form of transnational crime.
At the forum Costello will team up with human trafficking experts from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security including: Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center for an interactive forum. This forum will provide law enforcement officers with information and training on identifying and preventing human trafficking activity before it destroys more victims’ lives.
The forum will be held at Penn State’s Great Valley campus in the main building, 30 East Swedesford Road in East Whiteland, on Friday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
For more information contact Costello’s district office at (610) 696-2982.
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