Congresswoman to Host Panel on Human Trafficking

As part of her Young Women Leadership Program, Virginia 10th district Congresswoman Barbara Comstock is hosting a panel of local female leaders for an hour-long discussion on human trafficking.

The panel will take place Monday from 3-4 p.m., and will be held in the meeting room at Great Falls Library, located on Georgetown Pike in Great Falls village.

The panel, confirmed by Comstock’s office, is as follows:

• Deepa Patel of the Multicultural Clinical Center (MCC)

• Detective Bill Woolf of the Fairfax County Police Department

• Beth Saunders of the Just Ask Prevention Project

• Dr. Ludy Green of Second Chance Employment Services

The topic of human trafficking has become especially relevant in recent weeks since Virginia passed new legislation that shifts burden of guilt from the female victims of human trafficking to the men behind many sex-trafficking rings. The law took effect on July 1, and the first arrest under the new law was made less than two weeks later.

“This crime targets young people in middle school and high school, and we want to educate and inform these young women about this threat to them and their peers, and help them be a part of the solution in fighting this scourge,” Comstock said in a statement to Patch.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, sex trafficking is the second-largest crime industry in the country, trailing only drug trafficking, and children account for nearly half of sex trafficking cases. In 2010 alone, children amounted to more than 1,000 of the 2,500 sex trafficking cases reported in the U.S., which, coupled with the new laws, inspired Comstock’s panel.