BEHIND THE B-ROLL ONLINE

On Tuesday January 16th, Breaking The Chains partnered with anti-trafficking agencies in Fresno including the Central Valley Justice Coalition, Fresno Economic Opportunities Commission, the Clovis Police Department, the Central Valley Community Foundation and more.

The goal of the partnership is to end human trafficking in the Central Valley showing support by standing on street corners in Fresno, Clovis, and Madera.

“The pledge to stop human trafficking serves three purposes I feel, the first being of course awareness, acknowledging that it’s happening here in the central valley. The second, knowing where your money is going exactly is very important. It has vetted the organizations that can benefit from this fundraiser. And then of course it’s raising funds to support the community at a greater amount,” Pledge Co-Founder Amber Secundino said.

Secundino, along with Breaking The Chains C.E.O Tiffany Apodaca organized the pledge after seeing the need to fight human trafficking in the Central Valley.

“We came up with this idea of bringing awareness, standing on the corners holding signs, just kinda to enlighten our community on what’s going on right here,” Apodaca said.

“In the midst of all that there were all these different agencies that were doing all these different kinds of direct services, and so we really thought this was an opportunity to bring us all together and show unity and show that we are all here fighting human trafficking.”

The pledge invites people, “to be more curious” as Secundino puts it, and take human trafficking into consideration as consumers and as people.

“If you see someone that’s working, just questioning, ‘are they being paid a fair wage?’ If something doesn’t feel or sound right we always encourage people to report.”

Secundino also said, that there are obviously groups that are more vulnerable to human trafficking than others, but what constitutes vulnerability may not be so obvious to some.

Migrants, women, children, anyone being trusting on the internet, anyone alone at night; the reality is that human trafficking victims don’t have a set demographic.

If anyone find themselves in need of filing a report they can contact the national human trafficking hotline, local law enforcement, or you can reach out to another anti-trafficking agency.

Reports can always be made anonymously.