As one of our projects for OATH (Oklahomans Against Trafficking Humans), we started an initiative called Truckers Against Trafficking (TAT) to educate and raise awareness among members of the trucking industry, because, to a great extent, domestic sex trafficking is occurring along our nation’s highways and at its truck stops. Pimps have even been known to recruit truck drivers to transport girls over state lines. While the average age for a young girl to enter the sex-for-sale industry in the United States is 12, many of them are forced to lie about their age, pretend they enjoy what they do and present a much older image of themselves.  In response, we are asking the 3.5 million domestic truckers to become aware of this issue, because they are the eyes and ears of our nation’s highways, and, when they suspect a human trafficking case, to call the national hotline and report it. To that end, Chapter 61 created:

• Wallet cards for truckers to carry with the national human trafficking hotline number on them, red flags to look for and questions to ask, because we believe truckers can and will be a major force in ending the horror of domestic sex trafficking.
• Posters that are trucker specific that can be hung in trucking company break room, truck stop restrooms and restaurants, etc.
• Job skill/resume/interview training curriculum for human trafficking.
• Several PowerPoint presentations that can be used with trucking audiences as well as modified for use with other audiences.

Since beginning this initiative, God has blessed beyond our expectations, providing us with some trucking industry partners, such as:

• Christian Truckers Network, which put up a website for us called, www.truckersagainsttrafficking.com;
• Tenstreet LLC, which got us some good publicity in national trucking newsletters and newspapers and an hour-long radio broadcast on a Roaddog Trucker Radio show;
• Women in Trucking, who wrote about us in their newsletter and also provided us with a booth at the Big Rig Expo in Tulsa in October as well as three presentation times there;
• Transport for Christ, which helped us do three Human Trafficking 101 webinars and is also putting our human trafficking information out in all their chapels across the United States and Canada.
• We’ve also received publicity through the publications of the American Trucking Association, the National Association of Truck Stop Operators and some state truck associations.