Abilene Times

Over the course of 2022, Abilene Independent School District (AISD) and Allies Against Slavery started working together and eventually launched a district-wide anti-trafficking initiative for screening.

“As a West Texas town positioned on the I-20 corridor, the reality of potential human trafficking running through our community is daunting,” Tina Fleet, lead social worker for AISD, said in a press release. “We could not turn a blind eye to the possibility that child sex trafficking may occur. In fall 2022, AISD Student and Family Support Services elected to utilize the CSE-IT Screener through Lighthouse. Since implementing screening, we have identified students with clear concern for trafficking. The screener provides us with the quickest and most efficient tool to assess a situation, allowing immediate intervention to take place.”

Fleet contacted Allies Against Slavery earlier in the year, which started their working relationship.

As part of the initiative, Lighthouse, software developed by Allies Against Slavery that uses data to combat human trafficking, has already been implemented in AISD and is making an impact. AISD staff have found that, of the high-risk students screened, one in five is a potential victim. With Lighthouse, the staff is now empowered to design more effective interventions and tailored care for those students.

On Nov. 3, a restaurant owner in Abilene was arrested on a warrant for human trafficking, according to BigCountryHomepage.com. He was accused of holding an undocumented immigrant in a home and forcing him to work with no money and little food for six months.

According to court documents, an undocumented immigrant gave a statement to the Texas attorney general’s office’s human trafficking unit in February, outlining the allegations against Hai Zhuang. The immigrant told investigators he was smuggled into the U.S. with 12 others from Honduras in January 2021, then was taken to a stash house in Houston before he was transported to work at Fun Noodle Bar in Abilene.

Allies Against Slavery published “Human Trafficking By the Numbers: the Initial Benchmark of Prevalence & Economic Impact For Texas” in partnership with the University of Texas, where it estimated that 313,000 people in Texas were victims of trafficking. Its goal as an organization is to identify and help those individuals.