Get the best experience and stay connected to your community with our Spectrum News app. Learn More. It's, this is happening. We need to do something about it. And so, unfortunately, and I will admit to this, it took me aback. Those guys coming in to present really opened my eyes to that. So that is a sad reality. That is something that is a thought process out there for many people.
Human trafficking is a worldwide crisis. That includes Wisconsin, where trafficking occurs in every county in the state, according to Dana World-Patterson, chair of the Milwaukee human trafficking task force. It is a problem in this community. And I think, as a whole, it's a problem that we, as a society, really need to do more about.
But really, we need to devote — I'll come right out and say it because I really believe this — we really need to devote more resources to this issue because it impacts a lot more people than you probably realize. The National Human Trafficking Hotline reports that since its inception in , Wisconsin has had human-trafficking cases involving 1, victims. The vast majority were for sex trafficking.
However, in , a Wisconsin Department of Justice law enforcement assessment on sex trafficking revealed concerns in several areas. The findings included the following:. More specifically, the assessment found the Uniform Crime Reporting Program human-trafficking data is inconsistent across the state and more incomplete than previously believed. Respondents reported human trafficking happens in Wisconsin.
However, quantifying law-enforcement involvement with human-trafficking incidents remains challenging because identification and data-entering practices differ across the state.
