From WXXI news.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made at a truck stop out west last year.

An RV pulled into the truck stop and parked and nearby, a trucker was taking a break from the road.

That trucker noticed something suspicious.

He saw a hand, a small hand pop out of one of the RV's windows.

But then immediately something or someone pulled the hand back in.

The curtain closed.

There was no more movement for a while, but the trucker kept watching.

He noticed one male driver.

Multiple female passengers.

He decided to call police.

He was concerned that something was wrong down the road.

Officers pulled over the RV and found a case of child trafficking.

Six people were saved.

That's the story that Jacob Kirkman likes to share when he discusses a possible secret weapon against human and child trafficking.

America's truckers.

Kirkman works for inland Kenworth, which is one of the largest big rig dealers in the country.

He's connected to an organization known as Truckers Against Trafficking, and he points out that truckers who go through to training are taught to make trafficking awareness part of their daily routines.

Now, we heard about Kirkman and the story during some of our work, trying to better understand child trafficking in light of the ongoing Epstein scandal.

This hour, we're taking a closer look at the prevention of trafficking.

Who can stop it, what we know what's going on, and the ripples of Epstein.

My guests include this hour.

Jacob Kirkman is on the line with us.

A U.S.

marketing coordinator for Inland Kenworth.

Jacob, thanks for being with us.

Thanks for having me today.

It's a pleasure in studio with us.

So let me welcome back to the program.

Melanie Bleau, founding member and board vice president for the Rochester Regional Coalition Against Human Trafficking and executive director of the Stop Abuse campaign.

Thank you for being here.

My pleasure.

And with us, as well as Celia McIntosh, president emeritus of the Rochester Regional Coalition Against Human Trafficking and founder and CEO of McIntosh Advocacy and Consulting.

Thank you for being here as well.

Thank you for having me.

And listeners, you might have just heard from NPR that the Justice Department is releasing more than 3 million pages of files related to the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

Today, the deputy attorney general, Todd Blank, said that will include 2000 videos, 180,000 images that had not yet been released.

And reporters from NPR, of course, across news agencies, they're all going through what's going to take a while to analyze these documents.

By the way, the department estimated earlier this month that what it has released of Epstein so far, the related files, was less than 1% of what they had.

Remember that Attorney General Pam Bondi said last February that that was it.

They put the whole thing out there, and then 11 months later they said, sorry, we've only giving you a 1% or less.

So a million new documents today.

A lot to analyze.

And I know that NPR and other outlets will be covering that story once they get a better picture of what's in some of those documents.

But we're going to not going to spend the whole hour on that.

Certainly.

I just want to ask our guests.

You know, Melanie, when you look at that story, what stand up most to you when you think about the Epstein scheme?

So one thing that stands out the most to me, and this is something a lot of people don't really talk about, is that no matter how much information gets put out there about the people who were that Epstein was trafficking these minors and young adults to, pretty much they're not going to there is very unlikely that there's going to be anything happening in criminal court, because the statutes of limitation have expired for all of that.

The statute of limitation for human trafficking is now it's like five years for patronizing a trafficking victim.

And for and I don't know what it was back when this happened, because it is important to remember that all of the stuff with Epstein happened before, I mean, was done before he got arrested in 2019.

So all of this stuff is is kind of old and some of it's very, very old.

So all of these people are going to be able to get away with it legally.

Statues, statutes of limitation.

One of the reasons it's worth looking at is because you never know what you're going to find there.

There could be other business partners, a business stuff.

That is how Epstein and Maxwell got convicted.

So there is stuff there.

And that's again why it's worth looking at.

But we are okay.

We've done okay with having statutes of limitations on sexual crimes against children and against adults and against.

You're saying we as a society have tolerated.

Yes, yes.

I mean, it took New York 15 years to get the Child Victims Act passed.

I spent I was there for the whole thing.

So I know and that was ultimately we didn't get everything we wanted, but people moved on it.

So the advocates moved on.

That's very quickly when we had enough votes, because, I mean, we literally had advocates dying of old age.

15 years is a long time to push for something.

Wow.

Yeah.

So, you know, Celia, before the program, you talked a little bit about the bigger picture, and the corruption of power and the way system was work or don't or fail.

And, you know, Melanie is making the point that.

Yeah, we're going to learn a lot from these files, apparently, but we might not get actual justice.

Do you agree?

Yeah, I do agree.

Because as Melanie stated for 15 years.

Yeah.

You know, this has been a topic.

And now even if they put all these documents out, we should be believing the victims the first time.

And oftentimes just a lot of victim blaming.

And when we think about every time that there the name is called Epstein, every time they say they're going to put out files, then it increases risk for retraumatize ation.

So for the victims and just, not having adequate supports, you know, so what stands out for me is not having adequate mental health support.

And those resources.

So.

Yeah.

Oh, boy.

Jacob Kirkman, anything you want to add there?

Honestly, I think I think they're both correct that I don't think there's going to be a lot of persecution for, the traffickers involved in this situation.

But I think the the only light side about this that I see is that there's not a lot of national coverage to the issue.

It's the biggest story in the issue, for the last 20 years.

And you're getting a lot of the younger generation on social media, outraged and fired up about human trafficking, which I love to see.

So the more people involved trying to stop it, the better.

No, that's a that's an interesting observation because, you know, to Jacob's point, there's obviously more engagement on the Epstein story than probably any human trafficking story we've seen in, in a generation or more.

And, Melanie, in past conversations with you, we've talked about how a lot of Americans just kind of don't instinctively believe not that they're, you know, don't want to protect kids or whatever, but people have a hard time believing that this kind of abuse happens.

Right?

Yeah.

And that is one when I see one of the upsides about this is no one is denying this anymore.

And that's because of the way legally, everything's shook out with the case.

People aren't.

No one's claiming he's innocent.

No one is claiming that he you know, that there weren't victims, which is very nice.

That's very that is a pleasant change from the way these sorts of cases normally shake out where.

Oh, I don't believe that happened.

I don't believe these victims are there, you know.

So yeah, it is getting a lot of, of publicity and we're starting at a better place to discuss it.

Well, you know, of course we're believing the victims because the guy was already convicted twice.

Well, and Celia, do you think that at least one of the takeaways will be more people tuned into this issue?

More people caring about this, or at least aware of what to do about this.

I think more people are tuned in, but I think that there's a lot more they can do.

You know, sometimes you have these hot button topics that people kind of like clutch their pearls against and they're saying, that's awful.

And, you know, but then when it when you look at how they're voting, when you look at how they're speaking up about the issue, I don't feel like the outrage is there.

So I definitely feel like they're complicit in some ways.

And that there's definitely a lot they could do more to have resources and to believe the child, because what we know is that at least 85% of children that are trafficked, or the individuals that are trafficked have been had some form of child abuse.

I also don't want to, I don't want to, but both sides of this in sort of a Pollyanna way.

But I just want to put out there that every time Epstein comes up in this program, people on all sides accuse me of, well, how come you didn't talk about Clinton?

How come you didn't say more about Trump and look, in this case, we still don't have the full picture because it hasn't been released and a lot of people still haven't fully talked about it.

And we don't know if we ever will.

We might not.

I don't know, and like I said, when you've got less than 1% of millions of documents released, I don't I don't know that we're gonna get the full picture.

What we do know is multiple presidents, the current president, Bill Clinton, all over the Epstein files, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton not wanting to play ball.

And you know, working with Congress on this.

And I get it.

Everything feels sort of weaponized and politicized right now, but I don't know that we will.

And when it comes to power, so you what's the lesson, the lesson to you on the corruption of power here?

That absolute power corrupts definitely.

That's where we are.

And then, I mean, to someone's point of, oh, well, you didn't talk about this person or that person.

Well, we need to focus on is this is an issue.

This is an issue no matter who did it, whether we have all the evidence, it's an issue that needs to be addressed because no child, no victim should be subjected to this.

And then you want to add there, Melanie.

Well, yes.

And the other reason like again, everyone is people, no matter what comes out about anyone.

I mean, this I see this as kind of like, when people do the whole thing.

Oh, what about Clinton?

What about Trump?

It's like this whole Rorschach test of and it's like people are going to look at this.

Whatever does come out, people are going to look at it and see what they want to see about.

There are political people with who share their politics, people who share similar characteristics, people who share this, that or the other thing they're going to see to a large extent what they want to see, and they're going to draw to a large extent, the kind of conclusions I want to draw.

And the refrain that is going to be, well, no one, no one got convicted, no trial happened.

We don't really know.

Right.

And the reason no trial happened is because, again, we have structures in place to keep that from happening, the statute of limitations, etc., that you talked about.

Yeah, yeah.

So the system is set up to make it even more difficult for victims.

Yeah, absolutely.

In short.

Right.

You agree with that, Celia?

Absolutely.

And we really should be looking through a lens of humanity.

I think that's what people are often missing.

You know, we need to look through a lens of humanity when we're with these.

When these issues happen.

So listen, as I see the phone ringing, if you've got comments, questions again, this is not just an Epstein our.

In a moment I'm going to ask Jacob Kirkman to take us through, I what was to me, it's kind of a stirring example, just one example of what people can do in their day to day lives.

I going to I'm going to ask our guests in studio to take us through what it would look like if, if this issue were taken more seriously in different parts of our society.

And we're going to try to be solutions oriented as we talk about it, but, if you want to call the program, it's toll free.

844295 talk.

It's 8442958255263 WXXI for call from Rochester.

2639994.

Email the program connections at Zorg or you can join the chat on YouTube if you're watching on the Sky news YouTube channel and first on the phones.

David is in San Francisco.

Hi, David.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

Well, thanks.

It's a good show.

I was wondering about tracking of these culprits.

So all these people who are still yet unnamed, the Trump or.

Excuse me, that, Epstein was working with, are they continuing to do human trafficking while Trump is covering them up and the corporations?

I noticed that with the Ice raids, if you look at, alligator Alcatraz, for example, there are 800, a minimum of 800 people missing from alligator Alcatraz missing.

And, there are numbers hundreds, if not thousands of people missing from these other camps.

Apparently there was video just from, camp down in, in Texas, yesterday or two days ago.

So I'm not sure how many children are down there and, apparently that little five year old, with the, blue cap is down there and people are screaming, at the reporters and the ice are threatening the journalists, down there.

So I'm wondering if the current, ice campaign of rounding people up is actually capturing more people and, and is, you know, doing them wrong.

David, thank you for the phone call.

It's two separate issues.

I understand some of the crossover.

Let me just start with the latter point, and then I'll just add, I don't know if our guests have anything to add about people in the Epstein sort of orbit are still sort of doing what I don't.

I don't know the answer to that.

But David, on the last point, I just want to say I read a really interesting piece in the times that I would encourage anyone to read about a very conservative judge in Minneapolis.

This is a judge who clerked for Scalia twice.

Scalia was his hero.

And it was appointed by Bush is on the bench.

He says he wanted to have the most quiet, nondescript, stick to the law career.

The law is the law as it's written, not as you want it to be.

That's one of his philosophies.

And this judge in the last couple of weeks has had to, in his words, rebuke to the Trump administration over Ice more than 100 times.

And he says he's tired of it because of what you're talking about, David, the way that people are detained, often without due process, the way people are moved around to different facilities, sometimes including kids, the way that people are treated on the sidewalk, the way people's property is knocked out of their hands, people are knocked to the ground.

This judge is saying, what are we doing here?

And this judge is no political lefty's best interpretation of a judge.

This is a very conservative Scalia like molded judge.

And the Trump administration came out yesterday and said he's just an activist lefty.

So it's worth reading that story, because part of what you're saying, David, is in the midst of all of these detentions, roundups.

Are we losing track of people?

Are we losing track of kids, even if intentionally or not?

Is it is it being done by the books and this conservative judges saying no, and it's a real problem in the right to being violated.

So that's something to follow up.

Now the first question was what's going on with Epstein?

The people in that network still doing what they do?

I have no idea.

I mean, I don't think any I don't know if anybody knows.

Melanie, do you have anything?

I mean, it's it's impossible to know because again, they have never they've never broken and they've never I won't say they've never broken the law.

They've never been investigate aided by criminal justice, at least for their involvement with Epstein.

So nothing has stopped.

There's been no legal mechanism to stop them.

It's very possible that some of them have.

I mean, also, a lot of these people are old and potentially have died of old age right now.

So there's that that's kind of a limiting factor on it.

But we just we don't really know.

It certainly is possible.

A lot of these folks don't stop.

People who patronize trafficked people don't usually stop unless something makes them stop, unless there's, you know, they experience a consequence or something.

And since that hasn't happened, it's certainly possible that some of them are okay.

Anything to add, Celia?

So I echo with, Melanie said, and I think the thing that sticks out to me right now is the tactics that are being used.

I would say that the tactics of economic, vulnerability, you know, certain policies that are being used, implemented, as you mentioned, human rights violations, all of those, you know, is a recipe for disaster, is a recipe for exploitation.

People are losing their jobs if they don't have adequate housing.

All of those things are, essentially increase the risk for vulnerability and trafficking.

So while there may not be a direct all of these indirect things increase that risk.

Your point about vulnerability, economic vulnerability, I think, is a really important one from what I've read, because, there's the kind of the gut wrenching process that people are going through the Epstein story saying like, well, we're these, girls.

Were they girls?

Were they technically adults?

Where they barely legal?

Were they legal?

I mean, like all the kind of gross stuff there.

But part of what I'm hearing from Celia is even when someone is quote unquote legal and you've got 50 year old billionaires telling you you're living in poverty, you've got no future, but you get on, get on this plane and come to this island with us, and you'll at least have the financial security.

I mean, I don't think you can just point to that person, say, well, she was 18.

I mean, is that part of the point there?

Celia?

Yeah, absolutely.

Because there's the sense of fear.

There's a sense of coercion, there's a sense of control.

There's a sense of insecurity.

Or uncertainty in your current life of, you know, if I don't make this decision, what's going to happen?

Am I going to be in a worse position?

So just in that, those tactics, like I said, increase the vulnerability.

As for, when you talk about not doing due process and the detainees, it's the same fear, uncertainty, control, coercion, all of those things.

There's a current case right now, that was just reported, one of the Ice agents, I think just they said something about potentially getting 15 years for doing some illegal activity with a detainee and coercing, trying to coerce her.

To show her a picture of her daughter.

But it was just like, those are some of the tactics here.

You are supposed to be in a position of power, but you're abusing your power and you're doing these illegal activities.

Okay.

All right.

So, David, thank you for the phone call.

Important points there.

By the way, Tim, I think the judge in Minnesota's name was Schultz.

I don't know, can you fact check me on that?

I want to bring in Jacob Kirkman, because this story that we've been talking about of, like, what people can do, I'm watching this piece out of Denver where they interviewed Jacob and they talked about what truckers can do, and I just I thought it was so interesting.

So, Jacob, first step back here.

What is truckers Against Trafficking?

What's what is that all about?

Yeah.

Truckers Against Trafficking is an organization that, focuses on combating human trafficking, training truck drivers, and recognizing the signs of human trafficking, but then also how to get involved.

These traffickers use our hotels or motels or highways, and and they're in every major area that we're in, and they're preying on the fact that these truckers are not paying attention, but they're also preying on the fact that there's a demand for trafficking services in the trucking industry.

You hear stories about truck lots sin and what goes down in them.

And there is a huge demand in our industry for it.

So it's A22 sided, double edged sword sort of thing.

We want to we want to get people involved to, to combat the trafficking and make the call to save lives.

But we also want to get involved, to stop the demand for for the human trafficking services, because without demand, these human traffickers can't do what they do.

So you're with Ellen Kenworth to tell us what Inland Kenworth is, and then Kenworth.

We're, we're a major truck dealership.

We service Kenworth, trucks all over the United States and Canada.

But we got involved with tat about, ten years ago doing these everyday hero truck campaigns.

Just raising money, for Truckers Against Trafficking.

We think they're a fantastic non-for-profit, and we just want to do anything we can do to to support them and support the cause.

And so I opened the program telling this story that I saw you telling a Denver news anchor about a trucker who's that at a rest stop and an RV rolls in and I, I, I want you to describe that story, but also how, you know, sort of functionally how that that doesn't have to be a one off that actually noticing these things that are maybe in our midst is more possible than we thought.

Yeah.

And I was actually corrected on that story after after aired.

So the real story is, is in 2015, Kevin Kendall, a truck driver, pulled into a truck stop in Richmond, Virginia.

He was doing his paperwork, noticed a beat up RV parked out back by the trucks.

He noticed a couple men coming in and out of the truck.

And the RV.

Excuse me.

And noticed the RV moving.

He figured it was prostitution, but it bothered him.

He kept looking.

He said everything seemed off about the RV, and and just everything seemed weird.

So at some point, a young woman looked out.

The window of the RV, was quickly pulled back from the curtains, and the, And the curtains were pulled and covered.

And at that point he called law enforcement.

They were able to recover a 20 year old victim who had been tricked by her friends, actually, that she'd known back home from Iowa and been taken across the country, tortured, beat starved, raped along the way.

And they were selling her for sex and posting ads on Craigslist.

Men were purchasing her through the ads and then coming to the truck stops to rape her.

The boyfriend and the girlfriend duo.

That traffic tour received 40 and 41 years, respectively.

And then the other side of that story where I kind of mixed it up, where there are two cousins out of Ohio who were at a Wendy's to get Frosties, a car pulled up.

The driver knew a lot about them and their family.

He offered them a ride.

They got in.

They took him to his house and told them that they were going to be his new prostitutes.

They were 14 and 15 years old, and they had two older women who were also victims that were made to train these young girls.

He took them to a truck stop.

He kept the younger one in the car and told the older one, if she messed up or didn't make money, that he would hurt her cousin.

So she never thought about asking or for help or running?

And this is common with traffickers.

They use coercion to over control for their victims.

I'm going to hurt your family.

I'm going to hurt your friends.

I'm going to do something to these other people.

If you do not, perform these acts.

So the truck driver noticed how young the girl was made the call to law enforcement.

They recovered that 15 year old girl that night.

They recovered her 14 year old cousin a few days later.

And that case actually led to a 13 statewide child trafficking ring.

They got shut down.

And so when it comes back to what you can do, not just truckers, but, but everybody involved, you never know what.

Just making a phone call or being vigilant or looking out for somebody can do.

In that second case, it led to a 13 statewide trafficking ring.

These trafficking organizations are massive.

They use, a ton of different people all across the United States.

They move their victims a lot.

These aren't just usually one off people.

They're organizations.

And so you never know what one phone call can lead back to.

How many countless lives you could save with one phone call.

So all inland Kenworth employees go 3 to 3 training now to identify traffic Absolutely.

Yep.

Every single one of our employees go through a training.

It's a free thing that they offer.

They offer a corporate training, but then they also offer a training for each mode of the transportation industry.

Whether you're an in home delivery driver, your school bus driver, you're over the road driver, they go into stories and, and exactly, what you would see in these trafficking situations, the case by case by case based on the mode of transportation.

So it's all free.

It's a 20 minute training online for each mode of the transportation industry.

And 2.4 million people have been trained through traffickers against trafficking to recognize the signs of human trafficking.

But we want to get at least all 8 million people in the industry.

Through that training.

And ideally, everybody in our industry is looking out for trafficking.

Jacob, let me ask you something that I bet comes up in some of these trainings and I want to hear from you.

And I think our guests in studio can also weigh in on this.

I can imagine someone saying, look, if I see something that's obvious, I'll call police.

But, you know, I mean, if I see something that looks a little off, but like, I don't know these people, I'm going to call the police.

What if it's just a family traveling now?

The police are running them down and, you know, they're going through that like, I don't I don't know if that's my position to insert myself in between all of this stuff here.

I'm trying to mind my own business.

A lot of Americans now feel like stick, you know, stay in your lane.

Mind your own business here.

What is the communication with people who feel like, if it's okay, if it's obvious, I call police, but otherwise I'm minding my own business.

Yeah.

And you also see a lot of people being hesitant to make the phone call, especially around the trucking industry with with ISIS involvement across the United States as well.

And so what I recommend is you call the national hotline number.

If you see a crime, obviously, please call 911.

You can still report that anonymously.

They do not have to follow back up with you.

And you just tell them that you want to report this anonymously, but the national hotline number is there to talk you through.

If you don't see a crime happening but you suspect something's off, you see something that's a little weird.

Call the national hotline number.

It's (888) 373-7888.

And it's just there to help talk you through what you're seeing, what's going on, help you get as much information about the person to make the model, what direction they're heading, what the person looked like, what the victim looked like.

You know, anything or any information that you can see, is is is great.

There's also a text line that you can text to, three, seven, three, seven, and you can text at any time.

And also get involved, send pictures, send videos.

These truck stops often have cameras, but they're usually only pointing at the fuel station.

And these traffickers will actively avoid those cameras.

So get as much information as humanly possible, report it to the help line, and they'll get in touch with law enforcement if they feel they need to, or if they see a crime happening while you're on the phone with them.

But if you're nervous about making a phone call, law enforcement nervous about getting involved, call this national hotline number.

That's what it's there for.

And they share all that information with law enforcement anyway.

So that information is going to end back up with the police.

So let's zoom out a little bit.

Jacobs talking about the trucking industry.

But Melanie, if if someone is saying I you know, I see something that looks a little off, but I don't know, I should mind my own business.

I shouldn't be calling police.

What are you telling me?

So a lot of it depends on the context and what it is that you're seeing and what I mean.

The huge, amazing, great thing about educating truckers is truckers.

See, you know, so much.

They move so many miles.

They they go to so many rest stops.

They see so many different people.

But it's usually brief, in a different context.

And the context like that, like, you know, if you're dry, if you're out driving down the thruway and you see something that just looks weird, I would agree exactly with what Jacob said.

Just call the hotline in a different context.

Like if you are working in health care or you are working in schools, or you are working with homeless people or other high risk individuals, if you have a relationship with the individual you're worried about, I guess it depends on, you know, what is it that's flagging you?

If it's something, if it's an individual who you are going to be able to keep seeing for a while, you can try to work with them.

You can try to get information from them.

You can try to give information to them.

You can ask if they're comfortable with some particular individual or you keep seeing them with or something like that.

And you can always say, well, I'm just asking because this kind of thing happens to a lot of people.

And here's some resources and you may, you know, the hotline number or this or that, you know, or some local resource, but you can just you can always say, well, here's something else.

Here's something you can do.

Here's people you can reach out to.

If you do find yourself in that situation, even if you're quite suspicious that they're in that situation right now, you don't need to say you don't need to because I know what's going on.

Tell me, tell me, tell me.

Be a vigilante right?

Exactly.

You can you can try to, work that what you've got in that relationship, nurture that relationship and help them that way.

Okay, Celia, what would you say to people who are nervous about intervening?

I would say also go with your gut.

I echo everything that was said, you know, definitely the national hotline.

You know, if there is a crime, definitely call 911.

You know, in nursing, we when we're when we have a patient that we're going to, you know, if we're going to have to do CPR or something like that, we have to surveil the scene.

What's what does the scene look like, you know, in the context of what you're looking at, where you where the where you are in the environment.

So basically being able to look and observe your environment.

What standing out, what doesn't make sense.

You want to kind of explore that a little bit.

From I would definitely say you mentioned kind of like that apathy of I'm going to mind my own business.

And the problem with that is that could have been that one opportunity to potentially help this individual.

So, sometimes it's like, yeah, you don't feel like you want to get involved, but take the step back and, you know, if just things are not going right or just doesn't make sense.

Definitely.

Like I said, go with your gut.

And in terms of health care, a lot of organizations should have policies and procedure in New York state, specifically in 2017, basically said they came out with a public health law.

And they said organizations have to have policies, procedures to identify and refer individuals.

So hospital organizations should have this.

I have worked with local organizations here to create policies, procedures to embed those into the system so that nurses, providers can, you know, look at what those indicators are and ask those questions as well.

But even within that field, sometimes individuals still get missed.

So it's a matter of also, if something, doesn't seem right, it's going with your gut and asking appropriate questions, trying to get the individuals, by themselves, you know, maybe taking them out of that room to a separate room, you know, taking them to the bathroom so you can explore those questions a little bit more, but trying to get them by their selves.

And specifically when we talking about the context of immigration, having them, use an interpreter and not someone that's bringing them in.

So, for the health care that's specifically.

But in the field, I would say go with your gut.

If something's not right, then you had those two options of 911 or the national Hotline.

Jacob, you mentioned 2.4 million people who work in the trucking industry of taking this free training that you were talking about.

Generally, how how receptive are truckers to this kind of training?

Very receptive.

Yeah.

So for every truck that we sell, we put a sticker on the windshield with, anti-trafficking messages, has the hotline number and the text number, both for the drivers and for any victims who are at the truck stop to get in contact.

But we'll see these trucks come back in, you know, five, six, seven years down the line for trade.

And the stickers still on the windshield.

Every single one of our customers wants to get trained.

Everybody's very active in the industry about this.

Anybody who covers anything on the industry always wants to get involved with this story.

I've had zero pushback for anybody in the industry.

And it's just a it's a huge, huge part for our company and something that we're very proud to be a part of.

And I think a lot of people are proud to support and be a part of traffickers against Trafficking.

They raised, just shy of $1 million at the end of last year.

Just in the last two months of, of the year, for the end of the year contribution.

So it's it's a huge, huge industry and, and huge thing that, that people want to get involved with.

Remarkable.

Talking to Jacob Kirkman, U.S.

marketing coordinator for Inland Kenworth in studio, Celia McIntosh, president emeritus of the Rochester Regional Coalition Against Human Trafficking and founder and CEO of McIntosh Advocacy and Consulting Melanie Bleau, founding member and board vice president for the Rochester Regional Coalition Against Human Trafficking and executive director of the Stop Abuse campaign.

We're coming right back to some of your feedback here on connections.

I. Coming up in our second hour, my colleagues from the newsroom joining me to talk about a number of big stories this week.

When you think about the busiest road near you, would you feel comfortable walking on that road?

Do you feel safe driving on it?

And if you wanted to reduce traffic, would you add lanes or cut lanes?

We'll talk about that.

We'll talk about a crisis in nursing when it comes to bring bringing in international nurses.

And we're going to hear from some athletes in our area going to the Olympics.

Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Mary Carey Ola center, proud supporter of connections with Evan Dawson, believing and informed and engaged community is a connected one.

Mary Carey, ola.org and Excel is Blue Cross Blue Shield, providing members with options for in-person and virtual care, creating ways to connect to care when and where it's needed.

Learn more at Excel bcbs.com.

This is connections I'm Evan Dawson, so let's get some of your emails here.

K writes to say thank you so much for at least mentioning the Epstein files.

It's absurd how much news time goes by in media without even hearing anything about it.

The alleged worst of the worst criminals running our country and therefore much of our lives.

But crickets.

While they're allowed to do anything they can still get away with, this cannot be left in the background.

All right, that's from K. I promise you, k I mean, I, I understand the frustration, feeling like certain stories get left in the background.

There's a lot going on in the world.

There's, you know, news has to figure out how to convey all the important stories.

And there's a lot right now.

But I also understand the idea that this is not one that can be let go.

And still you do you think that our attention has been enough on the Epstein story?

Do you think do you feel like it's starting to start to slip through the cracks?

Yeah, I haven't really heard anything lately about it.

I would say.

But one thing that I am a little reassured about is that even on social media, I will see people post release the Epstein files because they are realizing that even though there's a lot of stuff going on, that this is also a little bit of a distraction and everything needs to be amplified.

So yes.

Okay.

What do you think, Melanie?

I mean, so one of the things is with sort of the social media and technology allows us to do is to gravitate towards stuff we're interested in.

So I certainly am aware that this is getting an awful lot of Epstein files, are getting a lot of discussion.

I also realize that when stuff is getting released, literally, we're talking about millions of pages at a time.

I mean, I do see people, oh, what what happened?

What's it like?

Well, the grown ups in the room have to look through this.

Yeah, right.

It's a lot.

We're not going to know in 20 minutes here.

Right.

I mean, I, I so I have been following this for a lot longer than a lot of people.

When the first black book got released, they actually know the person who was responsible for that.

So I had no idea who we were talking about back then.

And then, you know, when I looked at the flight logs, I've looked at some of the masses and masses and masses of stuff that is out there.

But I've got a lot to do in my life.

Yeah, right.

And so does everybody else.

So this is.

Yeah, it's there's no way you can go through millions of pages worth of stuff quickly especially.

And this is again, this is nuanced.

There is going to be a lot of stuff that people are going to read, not really know what to do with it.

I don't think they're going to find one page buried in the middle of it that says Client List.

And, you know, right, there would be 25 names.

Here we go.

Right.

Easy.

Right?

Right.

There you go.

Yeah.

And I think unfortunate I think it was presented that way for a number of years.

Well there's a client list released.

The list.

It wasn't just the files was released the list, the like that'll be like done.

Right?

Exactly.

I mean, I don't think the guy was dumb enough to do that.

I could be wrong, but I'd be very surprised if he was.

Jacob, do you think that story is falling through the cracks at all?

Yeah.

You know, I, I think that there's a ton of national coverage around it, but the thing that that bugs me the most about it is that nobody's really taking the opportunity to then actually, localize the story, see what you can do to get involved, see what you can do to get trained to recognize signs of human trafficking in your area.

We're going to have very little impact, at least me personally, with the Epstein story and getting that released.

There's people on a national level who are doing that.

But what I can do locally about finding human trafficking in my area, in my truck stops, in my local businesses and our industries.

I think that's where I really see the ball getting dropped is like, you have this great opportunity to talk about the national issue and get people involved in and actually preventing human trafficking on a local level, and nobody's doing that.

So that's where I see the ball being dropped, not necessarily with the Epstein files themselves.

I think over 90% of Americans agree that we want to get the obscene files released.

When a recent survey I saw that.

So yeah.

Obviously we want to get the files released, but I want to see human trafficking stop in my state.

I want to see it stop at my truck stop across the street.

That's what I want to see.

All right, so Celia and Melanie in studio, you know, Jacob has been talking about what Inland Kenworth is doing.

Celia, what else can people do here?

So if I'm just thinking, okay, I haven't been tuned enough to this issue, I don't want to be apathetic.

I care what more can I do as an individual.

What what would you tell them?

Yeah.

So I mean, there are organizations that do work with, trafficking and they, you know, anti-trafficking and they do hygiene project products.

So they capture all those for the survivors.

So I would say that there's different ways that they can get involved.

So number one, it's pretty much educate yourself on what the resources are, what are basically in your community.

Knowing definitely the numbers, but connecting with an organization that's already doing the work and see if there's ways that you can lend a hand.

Like I said, there's a lot of resources being cut.

So if you can help, you know, whether it's doing a fundraiser or to have, you know, to collaborate with your circle of influence to, you know, raise some funds for organizations, then they can help survivors.

So that's one of the things I would say, okay, Melanie.

So I agree with everything that Kelly just said.

People, there's a lot of places online you can take training and, learn about it.

There's some really good documentaries out there.

There's really there's just really good websites.

Players project has a lot of good information and they're, they're kind of the national go to.

But there's a lot of good stuff really learn about it.

And then, yeah, think about what you can do in your community.

And it's not just going to be services that have the word human trafficking in it, but think about what you can do in your community to make vulnerable children a little less vulnerable.

How can who's out there trying to help abused kids or trying to prevent abuse, or even with abused kids too, can be a help?

Study for a study, healthy relationship in their life.

All of that stuff helps, human trafficking survivors, usually by the time they are no longer being trafficked, aren't usually doing very well, and they need a lot of financial support.

They need a lot of health support.

They need a lot of housing support.

Those are all things that are suffering right now very badly.

Learn, learn about that and learn about what you know again, what you can do in your area.

Is there a street outreach program that works with homeless people?

Some.

That is where you're going to find some of them.

You're gonna find a lot of them there.

Especially when the lowest level of, you know, street prostitution, where it's there isn't necessarily as much money involved, but a lot of drugs, you know, that's where you're going to find these people, learn about that, learn about who's helping them in your area and see what.

And again, money, time, donations of food or donations of hygiene products, stuff like that makes it makes a big difference.

Yeah.

I keep going back to Celia's point earlier.

It is typically the very vulnerable who are preyed upon and pulled into trafficking because they don't have the resources.

They don't have networks of people around them.

They might not have strong family relationships.

And so a lot of the focus, understandably so, is on trying to get justice, trying to catch the people involved, etc.. But Celia, Melanie's point, I think, is one to keep in mind here for people who have been trafficked and are no longer being trafficked, their life is not a cakewalk here.

Correct?

So what do we need to do?

What can society do or do more of?

Well, we need to have we definitely need funding, definitely need funding.

And we need resources.

Because if you do want these individuals to reintegrate back into society, then I mean, are there work programs that they can be?

And, what kind of supports does an organization provide for them?

They can, you know, remove some of the barriers.

You know, oftentimes, you know, in the pandemic, when we think about social services, they were able to do things, you know, virtually.

Why does someone have to go into an office and stand there for a certain amount of time?

You know, so how can we remove some of those barriers so we can have more access to those resources?

So it's really going to be about that.

And the one other point that I want to make is really how crisis centers can play into this, because right now you have a lot of individuals that don't feel comfortable, safe going into organizations that historically were safe havens.

So you know, they may not be getting the care and the resources that they previously could.

So crisis centers are going to be important to be able to know what those resources are so that when those individuals call, they can point them into the right direction.

Before the program began, Melanie mentioned that, some of the cuts we've seen nationally could impact anti-trafficking efforts.

How so?

So I'll actually a lot of cuts that have happened have impacted, anti-trafficking efforts.

So Arquette is part of a New York state, call it, a Western New York Coalition of anti-human trafficking organization.

And a lot of our member organizations are also part of it.

And these are places where law enforcement of different types could get together, talk with.

So like state police, sheriffs, local police, could all talk, get together and talk with each other and talk with not for profits.

These are not terribly expensive things to operate.

But all of that funding got eliminated.

So they're trying to limp on now together as best we can.

But you know people spend their time coordinating these and we're talking really this is quite, quite a good, task.

Quite a good task force coordinated coalition.

And it doesn't have the funding now.

So we it doesn't have the kind of coordination and we're not meeting as often and things like that.

There's huge changes to what we've all heard about the snap cuts.

That's not going to help people because again, it's really it takes a long time for a trafficking victim to get to a point where they're able to earn a living wage if they ever can.

Trafficking will wear people's body and mind into the ground.

So by the time they're out of that, they need time to regain physical and mental health.

So they're not they usually don't have a lot of money, so they rely on public assistance.

Now that public assistance is a lot harder to get.

We snap got affected this year.

Medicaid's snap got affected in 2025.

The actual effects are going to hit in New York State most profoundly the end of next month, I believe.

And then we're expecting the same thing to happen with Medicaid this year.

Post-election, I think, after the 2026 election.

Oh, yeah.

Correct.

Yeah.

Yes.

Correct.

Timed for that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But but again, so a lot of former trafficking victims need Medicaid.

Yeah, they absolutely do.

There's been changes with section eight housing and the funding formulas for supportive housing and stuff like that.

All of that is stuff that is suffering in this community.

And a couple weeks ago, and this is kind of the good news, bad news story is that you'll huge funding cuts for SAMHSa contracts are actually frozen, for parts of SAMHSa that do things like street outreach, opiate addiction outreach for homeless people and very marginalized people, very low income areas that may there was it was a quiet farce, but there is enough for us.

And enough of an organized push that actually got restored in 48 hours, which is kind of amazing.

But it just happened like that under the radar.

So that's just a kind of a picture from Melanie's perspective on the various cuts and maybe the tentacles of where the cuts go.

Let me get Gina to email Gina, said Evan, your guests have been talking about subtle signs of distress, how to recognize trafficking victims in our own lives.

Why was it so difficult to recognize the Epstein victims?

Okay, so Gina's contrasting seeing hand come out a window to truck stop versus what should have been obvious, and I. I don't think it's complicated.

I mean, Celia said at the start here, power corrupts and power protects power.

I don't know if it's more complicated than that in this case.

Is it Celia?

Now, I think that's exactly what it is, you know?

And then it's a yes power money.

And then what are the networks around that?

So if you have individuals that our judges, our lawyers, our police, you know, they're going to protect those environments.

They're going to protect those individuals that are doing it.

So they have this kind of network of powerful individuals with large titles, you know, that have access to, you know, potentially, you know, wreak havoc if someone does speak up about it.

And then, of course, like I said, society doesn't help when they tend to reflex towards victim blaming.

And when you have that, then you know, there's a lax on accountability from those systems.

And those systems continue to fail.

Victims.

Gina, thanks for the email or down to our last couple of minutes.

I'm going to ask our guests just what they want to leave with the audience.

Final thoughts Jacob Kirkman, U.S.

marketing coordinator for Inland Kenworth.

What do you want to leave with our audience today?

I'll leave you with a couple facts.

81% of trafficking, is utilized by the transport industry for their recruitment.

76 use their transportation during the course of their exploitation, and 52% say that transportation help, facilitate their exit or escape.

It's super important to get involved if you're in the transportation industry, get trained, figure out how you can get involved, and if you see something, make the call.

Save lives.

(888) 373-7888.

All right, Celia McIntosh.

The floor is yours.

So I guess I would just re-emphasize that we all can play a role in recognizing, human trafficking, and but I'll also leave with some, data points.

75% of individuals that have been trafficked access mental health and like I said, if the resources are cut, then that's a huge population.

And then of course, 40% have criminal records, which also increases the barriers and the and the criminal records are typically due to their exploitation.

And then, they are also 11 times more likely to be, unbanked and have payday loans, which also increases their risk for, financial freedom and, reintegrating back into society.

So important stuff, Melanie.

Final thoughts?

I mean, I'm really glad how excited people are about trafficking right now, how excited the Epstein case has made us about it, about doing something about it.

But yeah, but what we need to we need to think.

Keep thinking of this.

This is like metastasized for B cancer.

This human trafficking is this is a point where you never want it to get.

It starts out with vulnerability.

It starts out with kids being harmed.

It starts out with kids not being protected.

And it starts out with people not having the things they need to get through the day.

And these are all things we can do a much better job at fixing and preventing.

We just you know, let's take this outrage and focus it on on prevention.

Melanie is a founding member and board vice president for the Rochester Regional Coalition Against Human Trafficking, and executive director of the Stop Abuse campaign.

Thank you for being here.

My pleasure.

Celia McIntosh, president emeritus of Rochester Regional Coalition Against Human Trafficking and founder and CEO of McIntosh Advocacy and Consulting.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you.

And thank you.

Jacob Kirkman, U.S.

marketing coordinator for Inland Kenworth.

Thanks for the time today.

Thank you.

More connections coming up in a moment.

And up.

This program is a production of Sky Public Radio.

The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of this station, its staff, management, or underwriters.

The broadcast is meant for the private use of our audience.

Any rebroadcast or use in another medium, without express written consent of Sky is strictly prohibited.

Connections with Evan Dawson is available as a podcast.

Just click on the connections link.

At WXXI news.org.