{"id":1317596,"date":"2020-01-08T17:17:40","date_gmt":"2020-01-09T00:17:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=992450"},"modified":"2020-01-08T17:17:40","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T00:17:40","slug":"high-demand-for-sex-trafficking-summit-to-highlight-frequency-and-prevention-of-exploitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/high-demand-for-sex-trafficking-summit-to-highlight-frequency-and-prevention-of-exploitation\/","title":{"rendered":"High demand for sex trafficking? Summit to highlight frequency and prevention of exploitation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Dozens of people, including law enforcement officials, attorneys and members of the public, participated in a Human Trafficking Summit Friday, Jan. 11, 2019, at Colorado Mountain College in Rifle.<\/strong>
Alex Zorn \/ Post Independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The northwestern part of Colorado \u2014 from the central Rocky Mountains to the Utah border \u2014 has some of the highest demand for sex trafficking in the state.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s according to Angela Roff, who is organizing the second Battlement to the Bells Anti-Human Trafficking Summit, which will take place Friday in Rifle.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy belief is that a lot of people don\u2019t think it\u2019s a problem around here,\u201d Roff said. \u201cBut I think once you look at the data, you begin to accept that it is a problem here, that there is a high demand, and therefore, what are we going to do to stop it?\u201d<\/p>\n

The event, organized by the Battlement to the Bells Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force, brings together a coalition of activists in the Roaring Fork Valley and beyond who have been working to raise awareness and prevent human trafficking for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe finally all just came together with more of a cohesive voice,\u201d Roff said.<\/p>\n

Roff, a prosecutor for several municipalities in Garfield County, began working in anti-trafficking several years ago after encountering defendants who exhibited common signs of exploitation.<\/p>\n

She saw people who would say they didn\u2019t have their ID because a friend was keeping it, or people who would get in trouble at a rest area with no apparent reason for being there.<\/p>\n

\u201cOther times, we had people that were arrested and things were found on their person that led me to believe they were in the sex industry, but I wasn\u2019t sure if they were willingly participating,\u201d Roff said.<\/p>\n

Those interactions made Roff think that trafficking is occurring, and going unnoticed despite contacts with law enforcement.<\/p>\n

At the 2019 summit, more than 100 people attended, including law enforcement and attorneys. But the program also attracted people from fields such as banking, healthcare and education.<\/p>\n

This year, more than 110 people have registered for the Friday event, which begins at 8 a.m. at the Colorado Mountain College campus in Rifle.<\/p>\n

The day-long summit features more than a dozen speakers who will discuss the prevalence of trafficking humans for sex or for coerced labor, as well as the prevention and signs of exploitation.<\/p>\n

9th<\/sup> District Attorney Jeff Cheney will speak about prosecuting human trafficking, particularly sex trafficking, and the high burden of proof needed for a conviction.<\/p>\n

Over the past few years, Cheney\u2019s office and the state Attorney General\u2019s office have prosecuted a high-profile case of sex trafficking that occurred at a Glenwood Springs hotel in the summer of 2017. That investigation has led to three guilty pleas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Angela Roe Clark, who spoke at the 2019 summit<\/a>, will return this year to offer a trafficking survivor\u2019s perspective.<\/p>\n

The summit is only part of the task force\u2019s work. At monthly meetings, the coalition members meet to strategize on education and prevention efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all have an interest in ending human trafficking, and stopping the exploitation of people. Now we have to figure out, step by step, what that means,\u201d Roff said.<\/p>\n

tphippen@postindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dozens of people, including law enforcement officials, attorneys and members of the public, participated in a Human Trafficking Summit Friday, Jan. 11, 2019, at Colorado Mountain College in Rifle.Alex Zorn \/ Post Independent The northwestern part of Colorado \u2014 from the central Rocky Mountains to the Utah border \u2014 has some of the highest demand […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1317596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-06 06:05:11","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1317596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1317596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1317596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1317596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}