Columbia, SC (WLTX) -- Many of us think our community is immune to sex trafficking, but an eye-opening statistic says otherwise.
Local leaders tell us once every six weeks, a child in the Richland County school district is a victim of human trafficking.
Community leaders who are working to change this reality talked about how.
"The statistic that scares me the most is that about for the last year and a half, two years, about once every six weeks, an arrest is made in trafficking that involves a student that attends one of our Richland County schools," said Richland County Councilman for District 8, Jim Manning.
"Within every 6 weeks, the Richland County Sheriff's Department typically has an arrest in terms of trafficking. Once they go in and do investigations, they find that at least one victims is a student within Richland County School District 1, 2, any school district in Richland County," said Alexis Williams Scurry, the Richland County Anti-Human Trafficking Project Coordinator Housed in Richland County CASA and the Court-Appointed Special Advocates Office.
It's such a startling statistic, you wouldn't believe it at first, and it involves our children in Richland County.
For County Councilman Jim Manning, it's a wake up call for our community.
"Human trafficking is not something that's happening somewhere else, somewhere around the world. New York City or Atlanta," said Manning. "It is happening here and it is happening here now."
Richland County has teams and organizations hard at work to reverse this reality.
The Richland County Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force, for example, is a team dedicated to help identify local cases of human trafficking, rescue victims, and prosecute those responsible.
"What I typically see is 1 to 2 cases come in to the CASA office that are human trafficking cases per month," said Scurry.
Scurry helps place victims in a safe home, she recommends a place for therapy and she helps them to find their way out of the lifestyle.
"Once they come into the life, a lot of times they recruit," said Scurry. "As a result, we don't want them to go to school with other children where they recruit those children into the life of trafficking."
Scurry typically works with girls between 14 and 17 years old, but trafficking victims can be any age. How you can help is keeping an eye out for red flags.
"Most of the kids on my case load, they've run away multiple times," said Scurry. "They may be truant from school. They may have belongings they can't typically afford, such as an expensive handbag or expensive shoes. T hey may have multiple cell phones."
Look for changes in behavior. Victims may become more aggressive or more promiscuous. They may also have difficulty with authority.
May 14, state leaders passed legislation (https://www.scstatehouse.gov/sess122_2017-2018/bills/3329.htm) to increase jail time for traffickers.
"We don't want it in our county. So that's really what's driving us," said Manning. "Not in our county. We want to protect our children in our county."
The Richland County CASA program was also recognized nationally for their efforts in combating human trafficking.
In fact, Richland County has the only CASA office in the nation to have an anti-human trafficking project coordinator: Alexis Williams Scurry.
If you believe you've come across a victim of human trafficking, call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center at 1-888-373-7888 or e-mail them at nhtrc@polarisproject.org.
If you're interested in volunteering to be a Guardian ad Litem through the county's CASA program, visit https://www.rccasa.org/.