Wichita typically doesn’t come to mind when someone thinks of human trafficking. But for far too many, human trafficking is all too real right here.

Wichita State assistant professor Karen Countryman-Roswurm and WSU students have teamed up to create the Center for Combating Human Trafficking, which will serve the university and Wichita community to respond to modern-day slavery.

 “Just because of how we’re positioned on the map, we are an originating city (of human trafficking) and traffickers come through here. They take our young people and exploit them,” Countryman-Roswurm said.

She hopes the new center will help put a stop to that.

“The overall purpose is really to help develop the capacity of our community and the region to deal with the issue of human trafficking,” she said. “And we’re going to do so through training and education, research, and collaboration and consultation with other agencies.”

The intent is for area agencies and Wichita residents to have access to the knowledge, skills and resources to prevent human trafficking and be able to identify the signs of someone being exploited sexually.

“This is much bigger than human trafficking,” she said. “This is really about the humanitarianism and the dignity and the worth of our fellow men, women and children.”

The Polaris Project, a global organization that battles human trafficking worldwide, estimates that 27 million people are exploited around the world either sexually or through forced labor. 

In addition, the industry profits about $32 billion each year. This demonstrates the need for CCHT.

“That’s very significant because there’s really nothing like this in our region where the community is really connected to the university,” Countryman-Roswurm said.

CCHT is already in action around the state of Kansas through legislative work, research and much more. A permanent site on the WSU campus has not been located.

“We are already doing the work,” she said. “I was just in Hays speaking at a college, and I was in Topeka the week before. The work is absolutely occurring right now.”