Rotary Speaker Discusses Child Sex Trafficking in Texas
 
Rick Naylor is founder and Executive Director of Partners Against Child Trafficking (PACT), based in Austin. Naylor shares information about child trafficking and ways to address it at the Rotary Club of San Marcos meeting on Wednesday, January 5. Meetings are at noon in the Holiday Inn Convention Center, 105 Bintu Drive, San Marcos. Visitors are welcome.
 
PACT is a leading authority and advocacy organization that trains youth and adults how to detect, defend, and disrupt against child trafficking. It is recognized as a Continuing Education provider by the Texas Health and Human Services and is a 501(c)3 nonprofit. Naylor says child sex trafficking is a worldwide problem of 4.5 million victims and a local problem with 79,000 victims in Texas.
 
Rotary District 5840, serving South Central Texas, has made a priority of asking clubs to share information about all forms of human trafficking, which is a major problem in Texas. The District says, “Human trafficking is a considered a modern-day form of slavery and usually involves commercial sexual exploitation or forced labor. A report by the Statewide Human Trafficking Mapping Project estimates that 79,000 Texas youth are victims of sex trafficking. Another 234,000 people in Texas are estimated to be victims of labor trafficking, forced to perform domestic or agricultural work without their consent.”
 
The Human Trafficking Unit in the Attorney General’s Office has a website with information and a video about the issue: https://texasattorneygeneral.gov/human-trafficking. PACT also has a website that shares information specifically about their efforts to address sex trafficking: www.pact.city
 
The Rotary Club of San Marcos is a 100-year-old nonprofit, nonpolitical, and nonreligious service organization. www.smtxrotary.com