{"id":4689,"date":"2012-06-25T17:34:00","date_gmt":"2012-06-25T17:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/findfreightloads.com\/blog\/?p=4689"},"modified":"2012-07-18T14:51:42","modified_gmt":"2012-07-18T14:51:42","slug":"truckers-hit-the-road-to-combat-sex-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/findfreightloads.com\/blog\/truckers-hit-the-road-to-combat-sex-trade\/","title":{"rendered":"Truckers Hit the Road to Combat Sex Trade"},"content":{"rendered":"

Each year, truck drivers<\/a> rack up almost 400 billion miles transporting goods across the United States.<\/p>\n

Now, truckers <\/a>are putting those miles to good use by participating in an initiative to stop human trafficking.<\/p>\n

“They’re the eyes and ears of our nation’s highways. They see things that we don’t,” Kylla Leeburg, with Truckers Against Trafficking, said.<\/p>\n

“They’re out on those lots, spending the night when they’re on a long haul so they’re able to capitalize on those moments,” she explained.<\/p>\n

Many drivers<\/a>, like Chris Peggins, are willing and able to call authorities when they notice a young girl or woman who might be trafficked.<\/p>\n

“I think it’s wrong,” he said. “People are not slaves. Slavery is over with.”<\/p>\n

At least one teenage victim has gone public thanking the truck driver who saved her. The man called authorities after spotting the girl and her cousin at a truck stop.<\/p>\n

“If it wasn’t for him calling the police and saying she just doesn’t look right there, I have no idea what would have happened,” the victim’s mother said.<\/p>\n

“The truck driver, the one who made the phone call, I think about him all the time,” she added. “I don’t know who he is, but I owe him a lot.”<\/p>\n

Truck stops are often an easy place for traffickers to operate. The predators can kidnap a woman, assaulted her, then drop her off at truck stops every night, forcing her to meet a quota of customers.<\/p>\n

Truckers Against Trafficking wants to help more truckers understand the horror that’s often right in front of them.<\/p>\n

“They were seeing girls out on the lots,” Leeburg said.<\/p>\n

She added that many truckers would think nothing of it, even becoming irritated at times because girls would interrupt them while they’re sleeping.<\/p>\n

But with education, Leeburg feels truckers understand that their annoyance can be someone else’s bondage.<\/p>\n

“What they started to see once they were learning about human trafficking is that those knocks might be desperation,” she continued.<\/p>\n

Now, the group works with the trucking industry to spread the word. Their message: if you see something suspicious, call the national trafficking hotline at 1-888-373-7888.<\/p>\n

“We’re already seeing hundreds of calls coming into the hotline and investigations are underway,” Brad Riley, founder of the anti-trafficking group iEmpathize, said.<\/p>\n

The hope is that with increased awareness and involvement, truckers can become a force in shutting down the modern-day slavery taking place right on the nation’s highways.
\n<\/p>\n

http:\/\/rightnowloads.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Each year, truck drivers rack up almost 400 billion miles transporting goods across the United States. Now, truckers are putting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4690,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trucker-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/findfreightloads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/findfreightloads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/findfreightloads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/findfreightloads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/findfreightloads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4689"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/findfreightloads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4769,"href":"https:\/\/findfreightloads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4689\/revisions\/4769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/findfreightloads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/findfreightloads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/findfreightloads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/findfreightloads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}