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Undercover Child Slavery Rescue On Access Utah Wednesday

voicesofyouth.org

Dallas Hyland, a photojournalist and resident of St. George, recently traveled to Colombia with a privately-funded organization, Operation Underground Railroad, to execute what they called Clear Hope; a mission they say proved to be the biggest child trafficking rescue operation in history.

Hyland says that there are approximately 23-million people worldwide in some form of subjugation, including forced labor, and sex labor. And two million of those are children. He adds that “...at the height of the Trans-Atlantic trade, the slave trade, I believe the numbers were around 17 million. This is alarming because that means we’re not progressing, we’re digressing. ...slavery did not end with the Civil War...It’s getting worse. It’s just underground and nobody talks about it.” 

The United States and Canada and other developed nations are consumers of human trafficking. On Wednesday’s AU we’ll talk about this ongoing problem and efforts by Operation Underground Railroad to make a difference. Tom Williams will be joined by Melissa Allison, who has been reporting on this for UPR, and guests will include Dallas Hyland, and documentary film director going by the name of Fletch.

Tom Williams worked as a part-time UPR announcer for a few years and joined Utah Public Radio full-time in 1996. He is a proud graduate of Uintah High School in Vernal and Utah State University (B. A. in Liberal Arts and Master of Business Administration.) He grew up in a family that regularly discussed everything from opera to religion to politics. He is interested in just about everything and loves to engage people in conversation, so you could say he has found the perfect job as host “Access Utah.” He and his wife Becky, live in Logan.