- Video shows Union Avenue, local motels, human trafficking awareness events
- Faith Heath, a human trafficking advocate, will host the Safeguard Conference where parents will learn the signs of human trafficking to keep others from going through what she went through as a kid.
Union Avenue is a hot spot for human trafficking.
City officials with the Department of Human Services have referred to it as the blade, slicing through central Bakersfield, but experts say trafficking knows no boundaries.
Human trafficking advocates like Faith Heath with Helping Us , an organization dedicated to supporting survivors, says predators continue to target our population’s most vulnerable.
In 2021, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received more than 17,200 reports of child sex trafficking across the U.S.
“It’s not just on Union Avenue or it’s not just in one central area,” Heath clarified. “Human trafficking has no bias, no socioeconomic bias, no background bias. It can happen to anyone.”