Women who are trafficked into the U.S. are often kept secluded and isolated to avoid suspicion. (Nadia Garcia/Borderzine.com)

Citizen awareness is critical to the prevention of human trafficking

EL PASO – The car headlights flashed past the windows of a farmer’s house out on a rural road in far west Texas on a sweltering, summer night bringing him outside to find out what the unusual midnight activity is all about. In the distance, he saw the car slowly approach a trailer parked in a desolate area and a man get out and open the trailer. “It has got to be a drug deal going on out there,” the farmer told Border Patrol officials in Hudspeth County, approximately 84 miles east of El Paso, Texas. Days later, Border Patrol officials broke into the trailer and found five Honduran women, dirty and barely clothed, shackled to cots. Between 18,000 and 20,000 persons are trafficked into the U.S. each year with the majority of cases involving sex trafficking of women and children.