Manteca police host human trafficking awareness town hall: "It happens everywhere"
It's Human Trafficking Awareness month and the Manteca Police Department hosted a town hall Thursday evening to talk about it, bringing education and awareness to the community – along with what signs to look out for and the importance of calling police if you see something.
Human trafficking is being called modern-day slavery, where victims of all ages, including children, are being trafficked.
"It happens everywhere," Karla Garcia, Prevail's commercial sexual exploitation of children advocate, said. "It happens in our homes, in our communities, and it's not just something that you see in undeveloped countries."
Concerned residents packed the Manteca Transit Center for the town hall.
"From what I understand, we have about 400, give-or-take, survivors in our region this last year, and somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 arrests of traffickers," Manteca Police Chief Stephen Schluer said.
Chief Schuler said the city lies right in between Highways 99 and 120, where they are a "hub track" from Sacramento to the Bay Area to Manteca, south to LA, to Vegas, Reno, and Seattle – with Manteca being "right in the middle."
"Criminals, pimps, madams, human traffickers, all synonymous, can sell kids for sex in the United States by mobilizing and moving them around," Dr. Troy Stein, the founder and CEO of Stop Human Trafficking, said. "That's why it's called trafficking. They're moving product for sale. And they often do that on the freeway systems."
Dr. Stein showed how the crime is happening all over the nation, including in the Central Valley region. It's a multi-billion dollar enterprise which the US Department of Justice labels the world's second-most profitable criminal enterprise, behind drug trafficking.
"If people don't know about it, it just won't stop," Chief Schuler said.
Todd and Badre Grigsby are grandparents of four granddaughters and attended the town hall to learn more.
"I think we learned a lot about how they groom them on different social media platforms, which is scary because they're always on their phones or their tablets," Bader Grigsby said. "We learned a lot about that. What to look for, signs that things could be happening, changes in behavior, clothing, there was a lot of information."
There is help for victims of human trafficking from non-profits like Prevail. They provide counseling and support to victims who are being exploited or trafficked and give counseling such as harm reduction and curricula based in healthy relationships, healthy coping skills and mechanisms.
"Education is going to be a really, really big part to this," Yvonne Ochoa, Prevail commercial sexual exploitation of children outreach program manager, said.
Ochoa said, for the fiscal year of July 2024 to July 2025, they served around 200 youth with over 1,000 services for those youth.
"I think it's that most people don't like talking about human trafficking because of the survival sex portion," Garcia said. "I think there's a lot of stigma and like taboo around it, and I think it's a hard topic to talk about."
A big takeaway from the town hall and what you can do to help: police are urging vigilance from the community.
"If you see something, say something," Chief Schuler said. "If you think it's wrong, just imagine that it's wrong. We'd much rather have you call us and it be nothing than not call us and it be something."
Manteca Police Sergeant Steven Beermann encourages the community to call adult protective services (209) 468-3780) , police (911 and Manteca Police at (209) 456-8100). If it involves children, you can call child protective services at (209) 468-1333.
"I think we need to cut it off at the source," Chief Schuler said. "And with the source, you got to cut it off with the purchasers. Because if there's nobody out there buying the product, the product goes away."
You can find out more about how to recognize human trafficking at the National Human Trafficking Hotline, where you can also get confidential help at 1-888-373-7888.