The Omaha Press Club’s Noon Forum this month focused on Human Trafficking. More than a quarter of a million people are trafficked in the U.S. every year.
And because of Omaha’s location along I-80 and I-29 and its regular hosting of major sporting events, thousands of these individuals move through or into the metro.
The Discussion on Human Trafficking featured two panelists: Stephen O’Meara, Assistant Nebraska Attorney General, Nebraska Human Trafficking Task Force Coordinator and the Child Protection Training Coordinator and Sister Rosalee Burke, a Notre Dame nun and coordinator of the order’s Social Justice committee.
"It’s the second largest criminal industry in the world with over $100 billion being taken in annually. These are human beings we are dealing with and the problem is when you use guns and sell them, they’re gone, when you sell drugs, they’re gone but when they have human beings, they sell them over and over and over again.”
Sister Rosalee said there are more people in slavery now than in any other time in the history of the world.
The overwhelming majority of people being trafficked are between the ages of 12 and 14.
The Omaha Press Club’s Noon Forum airs in its entirety on Monday, June 13th at Noon.