By Richard Bammer

Reporter headlines attest to the fact that awareness of human trafficking is on the rise and it is a local, national and global problem in need of a solution sooner rather than later.

Consider that a multi-agency human trafficking operation in late January in Fairfield yielded four arrests; Reporter columnists last month wrote about American Indian women and girls and foster children as being high risks for trafficking; a Sacramento man in mid-January was sentenced in Solano County Superior Court to three years in state prison for being involved in a human trafficking operation; and a Fairfield man suspected of trafficking a 16-year-old girl was arraigned Jan. 11 in Solano County Superior Court. All of these Reporter stories and opinion pieces were written during National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month.

So, in some ways, it was no surprise during Thursday’s Vacaville Unified governing board meeting when Kim Forrest, assistant superintendent of student services, and Ramiro Barron, director of student attendance and welfare, discussed Assembly Bill 1227, the Human Trafficking Prevention, Education, and Training Act, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown last fall.

Source: Vacaville Unified School District officials discuss human trafficking prevention