Advocating for safe children, stable families, and supportive communities
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Columbus, OH 43215 — 614-224-5802

Human Trafficking

Human trafficking is a crime that involves one person exploiting another through the use of force, fraud, or coercion to perform commercial sex or labor. Human trafficking can occur to anyone from any community, regardless of age, gender, race, nationality, religion, or class.

Traffickers can be anyone. Some are strangers while others are peers, family members, employers, or romantic partners. Children and youth involved in the child protection system, because they have experienced previous abuse or neglect, or are homeless or run away, may be targeted by traffickers who prey on children with unmet emotional, familial, and basic needs.

In September 2021, the Ohio Department of Public Safety, working with the Human Trafficking Task Force, the Ohio Department of Youth Services and PCSAO, released the Human Trafficking Resource Guide for Ohio’s Public Children Services Agencies.

Children services agencies play a key role in every community’s response to the trafficking of children, and play a role in the prevention of human trafficking by serving children at greater risk of future victimization. But agencies cannot address human trafficking alone; multidisciplinary, collaborative approaches that bring together juvenile justice, law enforcement, homeless and runaway youth services, victim service providers, mental health professionals, and others are required to address the needs of trafficked youth.

PCSAO has provided training and technical assistance to public children services agencies, juvenile courts, foster parents, and those working with transition-age youth.

Resources