Red Sand Project activities call attention to human trafficking

On Saturday morning, volunteers will be in front of the Westmoreland County Courthouse in Greensburg filling sidewalk seams and cracks with red sand.

Hosted by the Westmoreland County Human Trafficking Task Force and Blackburn Center, the activity starting at 9 a.m. is part of the annual Red Sand Project initiative to raise awareness of human trafficking both locally and around the globe.

Student volunteers from Seton Hill University will join in.

“The grains of sand represent the millions of people around the world who are affected by human trafficking,” said Renee Reitz, Blackburn Center advocacy program manager. “It’s hard to get exact statistics because so much of it is hidden.”

Globally, more than 40 million people are in some form of slavery, according to the Red Sand website.

Local volunteers started pouring sand in 2018, following the creation of the task force in 2017.

On Wednesday, they filled cracks at the New Kensington Police Department and in downtown Greensburg outside the Westmoreland Transit Center and Greater Things Ministries. At 5 p.m. Monday, they’ll be at Excela Frick Hospital in Mt. Pleasant.

“The community needs to be aware that this can happen to anyone; it’s not just kids abducted from their beds,” Reitz said. “Perpetrators can be any race, any age, any gender, any ethnicity.

“A lot of times, the perpetrator knows the person they’re going to exploit,” she said. “There’s usually a relationship — a partner, a friend, a family member or a boss. They target a person’s vulnerabilities and build a bond, so the victim doesn’t know they’re being exploited.

“The grooming process becomes more and more coercive, and then they isolate the victim from their support system.”

On the radar

“This year, awareness is more important, because the public has it on the radar,” said Gina Cerilli, a Westmoreland County commissioner and member of the task force.

The U.S. Marshals Service recently conducted Operation Not Forgotten in Georgia that resulted in “the rescue of 26 children, the safe location of 13 children and the arrest of nine criminal associates.”

Although this was not a designated anti-trafficking operation, six children found were confirmed to have been trafficked. One new sex trafficking charge also resulted.

The Marshals’ Operation Safety Net also has recovered at least 25 children in Ohio.

While trafficking for sexual exploitation is more often in the news, human traffickers also target vulnerable people for coerced labor, according to the National Human Trafficking Hotline.

Cerilli said she is most concerned about “the dangers of kids using social media, with perpetrators pretending to be other teenagers.”

She said she first became aware of the problem when she was in high school and a classmate was abducted after developing an online relationship with an adult who posed as a teen.

“She was using the computer in the family room, and her parents had no idea who she was talking to,” Cerilli said. “My biggest message is how easy it is for an adult to pose as another teen on social media. I tell parents, you need to monitor your children’s social media use.”

In addition to the sidewalk sand, volunteers are placing Red Sand Project shadow boxes and informational materials at locations around the area, Reitz said. Locations include Excela Frick, Latrobe and Westmoreland hospitals; the United Methodist Church of Mt. Pleasant; and the transit center, Greater Things Ministries, White Rabbit Cafe and Sun Dawg Cafe in Greensburg.

The Red Sand Project was launched in 2014 in Miami by Molly Gochman as a way to represent “individuals who fall through the cracks — whether the cracks of our social, economic and political systems or those of our personal consciousness.”

More information is available on social media using the hashtag #redsandprojectgbg, on the task force Facebook page or by calling the Blackburn Center at 724-837-9540.