HONESDALE, PA —The Wayne County Victims Intervention Program (VIP) provided services to 988 victims last year, of which 214 were victims of sexual violence. These included 98 adults, 34 children and 83 “significant others.”

VIP Director Michele Minor Wolf reported before the Wayne County Commissioners on April 14 as the commissioners proclaimed April as Sexual Assault Awareness month.

Wolf said increased reporting has made sexual violence more visible, but reports of human trafficking were unknown until recently. “It’s here in Wayne as well as overseas,” Wolf said.

When the first instance came, Wolf admitted, “It was shocking. We didn’t know how to deal with it.”

Trafficking can be with girls, typically 12 to 14, coerced by “older boyfriends” into running away to a (promised) better life. They live in shadow existences, away from public notice, moving frequently from state to state to avoid government agency intervention.

Other instances involve adults from other countries, brought here essentially as slave labor. Their captors take their documentation, and they also move frequently. Non-English speakers generally live where they work.

Minor said human trafficking, after illegal drugs, has become the second largest criminal industry worldwide, “and will soon be first.”

Minor said intervention can only come through public awareness, by noticing people who never speak, and/ or constantly keep their heads down.

Beyond that, it’s a matter of increased oversight of labor hiring practices, she said.