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.