This Saturday’s Kentucky Derby will pump millions of dollars into the Louisville-area economy. But it will also bring an increase in the number of sexually exploited women and children.
That’s the warning from Amy Leenarts, the director of the Louisville-based anti-trafficking group “Free 2 Hope”. “There is a syndicate that runs across the country, and they just simply go to all these big events all over the country, and they bring people with them—girls who are enslaved," Leenarts says.
Leenarts says traffickers use coercion and force to lure victims into sex work.
She’s asking the public to be on the lookout for signs of abuse, “It can be a child at a hotel where they shouldn’t be, when they’re obviously not with parents. It can be a young adult who has several different phones, or key cards from multiple hotels.”
Advocates are helping hotel workers and emergency medical services providers identify and report cases of human trafficking. Suspected cases of human trafficking can be reported by calling 8-7-7…K-Y…SAFE-1, or 9-1-1 if someone is in immediate danger.