The
first community forum hosted by the Asian American Trafficking Outreach Project
(AATOP) last week saw over 40 attendees! Those who were present ranged from
college students to professionals in the advocacy, health, legal, and social
service fields. This was the first opportunity for us at IOFA to introduce
AATOP to potential partners in a group setting and invite them to join us in driving AATOP efforts. We are excited to already have some organizations on board with us!
Shelby French, IOFA's director introducing AATOP at the forum
We asked the group these
following questions to generate ideas for next steps as we move forward in
producing outreach and training materials in collaboration with our partners:
- Do you believe that human trafficking is
a critical issue facing API (Asian and Pacific Islander) communities?
- Do you think human trafficking is being
addressed adequately in API communities?
- What are the challenges to building
public awareness and concern about human trafficking?
- What are the opportunities?
- Which API communities are at greatest
risk?
- Who needs to be involved to ensure
success and sustainability of AATOP efforts?
- What are the specific challenges and
opportunities in relation to outreach into this particular community?
- What are some culturally appropriate
models or methods of outreach to victims of similar crimes?
These questions generated useful discussion that we are compiling into an outcome document. We look forward to sharing the results with you!
