Human trafficking awareness event to be part of next week’s “Thursdays on Main”

CLEAR LAKE — People walking around “Thursdays on Main” in Clear Lake this coming Thursday may notice red sand in the cracks of sidewalks in the downtown area. It’s part of an awareness campaign of the State of Iowa Network Against Human Trafficking and North Central Iowa Coalition Against Human Trafficking.

State board member Lyna Debner says human trafficking continues to be a big problem in Iowa and throughout the region, and they want to do more awareness in the community.

She says the “Red Sand Project” that will take place at “Thursdays on Main” was originally launched in Florida, and people will be able to pour environmentally safe red sand into the cracks of sidewalks to raise awareness about human trafficking and those who “fall through the cracks” in that form of crime.  “We are going to have a booth there, so we’ll be able to talk to folks as they go by about human trafficking, any questions they have. We can hand out resources, pamphlets, things like that. We will give them a small container of the red sand and they can pour it into the cracks of the sidewalks to signify any survivors, victims, any of those folks that have possibly fallen through the cracks that they may know, or just to honor people in general, even if they don’t know them, that have fallen through the cracks.”

Most people when they think of human trafficking just think of younger girls being sexually trafficked, but Debner says there are many forms of human trafficking.  “It’s definitely young girls of course, but it’s also younger boys. Boys are on the rise as well. It’s very much sexual exploitation, but it’s also labor. Labor is just as high as sexual exploitation.”

If you can’t make it to “Thursdays on Main” next Thursday and want to learn more about how human trafficking is being addressed in north-central Iowa, click on one of these two links — https://iowanaht.org/  https://redsandproject.org/  https://www.facebook.com/NICoalitionAgainstHT/