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Recognizing January as "National Human Trafficking Awareness Month" in the City of Philadelphia and honoring those who work to eradicate human trafficking in the United States and across the world.
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WHEREAS, While slavery may have been abolished in America in the 19th Century through the 14th Amendment, human trafficking, an insidious form of modern-day slavery, appallingly persists in Philadelphia and in the United States well into the 21st Century; and
WHEREAS, The National Human Trafficking Hotline reports that there have been more than 1,000 documented cases of human trafficking in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania since 2007, with over 2,500 total victims caught up in those cases. While statistics are incomplete for 2018, Pennsylvania saw 127 cases reported through the end of June alone; and
WHEREAS, According to the Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services, victims of human trafficking are subjected to force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of commercial sex, debt bondage, or forced labor. Human trafficking is an issue that affects people of all ages, gender identities, and races alike; and
WHEREAS, Human traffickers use many physical and psychological techniques to control their victims, including the use of violence or threats of violence against the victim or the victim's family, isolation from the public, isolation from the victim's family and religious or ethnic communities, language and cultural barriers, shame, control of the victim's possessions, confiscation of passports and other identification documents and threats of arrest, deportation, or imprisonment if the victim attempts to reach out for assistance or leave; and
WHEREAS, It is a moral imperative to eliminate human trafficking, including early or forced marriage, commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, labor obtained through debt bondage, involuntary servitude, slavery, and slavery by descent; and
WHEREAS, Combatting human...
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