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News Blog
Posted // 2011-03-24 -
The Utah Health and Human Rights Project [UHHR], which works with victims of violent crime and human rights abuses, informed the law enforcement and legal services community yesterday it was closing down its human trafficking assistance program.
UHHR executive director Jocelyn Romano sent out an email on Wednesday that the decision "was prompted by a series of threats directed at UHHR staff. The threats continued over several months and became increasingly more hostile." While the FBI and local law enforcement were called in, the agency decided to transition its care of trafficking victims to other agencies and is no longer accepting referrals of cases.
Threats force anti-human trafficking agency to close services
by Stephen Dark |
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Posted // 2011-03-24 -
The Utah Health and Human Rights Project [UHHR], which works with victims of violent crime and human rights abuses, informed the law enforcement and legal services community yesterday it was closing down its human trafficking assistance program.
UHHR executive director Jocelyn Romano sent out an email on Wednesday that the decision "was prompted by a series of threats directed at UHHR staff. The threats continued over several months and became increasingly more hostile." While the FBI and local law enforcement were called in, the agency decided to transition its care of trafficking victims to other agencies and is no longer accepting referrals of cases.
Set up in 2003, UHHR, according to its website, is the only federally funded torture treatment provider in Utah and was, until this decision, the lead agency of the Utah Trafficking Victim Assistance Program. Along with identifying, counseling and caring for victims of human trafficking, the nonprofit works with survivors of wartime conflicts, victims of indentured servitude - modern day slavery -
and child brides.
Romano noted in the email that "human trafficking, by nature, is extremely violent and complex; we cannot assume the level of risk and potential harm to staff and clients at this time." She thanked partners in the law enforcement and legal community for their assistance. "With your help, men, women and children were identified, rescued and provided the opportunity to live free of fear, violence and imprisonment."
While some expressed concern over nonprofit UHHR's future federal funding, now that it is relinquishing victim assistance, Romano says "the agency is moving forward." The funding stream for its torture treatment program is not connected with the human trafficking work, and so its key role in providing counseling and support for torture victims will continue uninterrupted. Romano stated in the email that the agency will work on designing and implementing human trafficking assistance programs, presumably to be put into effect by other agencies in Utah.
Whether other nonprofits will be willing to continue UHHR's work is debatable, since they will have to look closely at security issues after the UHHR's decision to retreat from working with victims. One question some advocates want answered, however, is why federal and state agencies aren't more proactive in protecting human trafficking victims. "Federal and state agencies should be doing more," said one advocate. "While there is federal funding, there isn't safety." Either for UHHR staff or victims, it seems.
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This is why there are so many tortured, raped, sodomized, beat-on, punched, burned, & starved enslaved victims...because of the lack of commitment to see things through. Where is law enforcement or volunteer retired military persons?
Jocelyn, wow! A committment to keep us informed? Gee, that is true blue hero stuff right there. Now I can rest easy at night knowing you all are *committed*. Wow... So when the going gets tough, the answer is to run away and hide? Send a message to trafficking victims: "hey, we like you -- but not that much"?? What were you people thinking when you started this? That criminals would just fade away while you undermined their extremely lucrative criminal conspiracy to enslave others for profit? And that failing that, hey, you could just quit because it wasn't all that important? You didn't think that by backing down you would be encouraging the traffickers?
You need to hire some veterans who believe in and have a REAL committment to the cause. Anything less is just just welfare for people unwilling to go the distance. If you made a committment to free the oppressed, protect the weak, and speak for the voiceless, and then walked away -- I would not want to be living in your conscience. I would not want to be looking in the mirror.
It that offends anyone, sorry, its just how i feel. And if it bothers you, maybe there is a reason for that.
UHHR greatly appreciates the SLC Weekly's committment to keeping the public informed about the issue of human trafficking in Utah and welcomes the opportunity to discuss our decision to discontinue the human trafficking assistance program at this time. Please be aware that UHHR's future is not "unclear;" UHHR will continue to operate its program to assist survivors of torture and severe war trauma at full capacity. This program is distinc from the human trafficking assistance program and is unaffected by the change. UHHR is and will continue to be fully operational and moves forward with a clear vision and mission to assist surviors of severe human rights in their recovery and efforts toward self-sufficiency.