Lauren Evans
By Lauren Evans
Over the past several weeks, I had the incredible opportunity to help prepare the “Human Trafficking and Florida’s Schools” webinar. As a 2L at the FSU College of Law, I am still early in my career, but eager to help where I can. The webinar allowed me the opportunity to take a closer look at what Florida is doing to mitigate human trafficking in children. However, I also learned a lot about what we can do better.
Overall, Floridians should be proud of the progress our state has made. In 2019, Florida became the first state in the country to mandate child trafficking prevention education for students in grades K-12. The rule was advocated for by students at the FSU College of Law’s Human Trafficking and Exploitation Law Project. This rule was groundbreaking because it addressed the critical need to educate grades K-5 on the dangers of human trafficking, as these children are especially vulnerable. Our students saw a massive gap in the law and were able to advocate to fill it.
Despite leading the nation in human trafficking prevention education for students, Florida lags in other areas. While the Florida Department of Education website offers online training, webinars, hotlines, fact sheets, and local contacts as resources to educators, there is no mandatory training for school personnel. Teachers and other school personnel interact daily with children who are at risk of becoming or are already victims of human trafficking. Florida needs to do a better job of equipping our teachers and staff with the tools they need to help our children. Florida should require mandatory periodic training on how to recognize and report human trafficking in children. There are other states in the country, such as Tennessee, that already require this training and it is a glaring gap in Florida’s rules.
While we’ve made great progress, Florida still has work to do. I am grateful to be a small part of helping our children receive justice.
You can watch the webinar, “Human Trafficking and Florida Schools” that Ms. Evans mentions here.