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Human Trafficking
Video

Human Trafficking

Miami-Dade Police Department



Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Applicable
  • Concrete Examples
  • Engaging

Recommendation

As part of a community awareness campaign, Sgt. Joe Bermudez and Caridad Mas-Batchelor of Florida’s Miami-Dade Police Department delve into the realities of the crime of human trafficking. They point out that it is often misunderstood and confused with smuggling, but community members can learn to recognize a set of telltale signs that someone is a trafficking victim. This simple, informational video, produced by Citizens Crime Watch, focuses on community education and will be particularly useful for civic groups and local leaders, including executives, teachers and clergy.

Summary

Often misunderstood by the public, human trafficking has a specific legal definition.

As part of a federal program, the South Florida Human Trafficking Task Force performs preventative community outreach and education. Human trafficking, by definition, is the use of fraud or coercion to make someone engage in sexual activities for something of value, including food or housing.

Labor trafficking is a second category that often occurs in agricultural regions. In those cases, traffickers and their underwriters deny workers pay or force them to carry out strenuous work in hazardous conditions. Workers may not know these conditions await when they agree to employment, but when they arrive at a job site, the traffickers deny them their freedom and keep them in servitude.

Although people often confuse smuggling and trafficking, they are two separate crimes. Someone can be trafficked even in their own home without being transported across a border; conversely, smugglers...

About the Speakers

Sgt. Joe Bermudez is a community outreach specialist with the Miami-Dade Police Department. Caridad Mas-Batchelor is a special projects administrator with the MDPD’s South Florida Human Trafficking Task Force.


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