Alabama AG Launches Anti Human Trafficking Alliance

MONTGOMERY, AL — Attorney General Steve Marshall and the Montgomery Family Sunshine Center announced Monday they will lead a multi-agency alliance of state, federal and nongovernmental partners to combat human trafficking in Alabama.

Funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, the Alabama Anti Human Trafficking Alliance will share investigative resources to interdict and prosecute human traffickers in Alabama and provide assistance to victims.

"Human trafficking is a modern form of slavery," Marshall said. "It is a truly heinous crime, committed in the shadows—and in plain sight. Through force, fraud, and coercion, traffickers push their victims into demeaning forms of abuse, from sexual exploitation to domestic servitude. The victims are not limited to women and children, but include members of every age, sex, and demographic."

Marshall and the Montgomery Family Sunshine Center joined with the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for Northern, Middle and Southern Districts, Homeland Security Investigations, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Wellhouse, Ashakiran Inc., West Alabama Human Trafficking Task Force and Poarch Band of Creek Indians in signing a memorandum of understanding officially authorizing their partnership in the newly created Alabama Anti Human Trafficking Alliance.

Under the new partnership, which includes both law enforcement and well-established nongovernmental nonprofit victim service agencies, jurisdictional loopholes in capturing and prosecuting human traffickers will be closed, and victims will be afforded much-needed short-term and long-term support services.