January brings awareness to national Human Trafficking Prevention Month. Human trafficking, including the commercial sexual exploitation of children, impacts children and youth of all ages and demographics. According to the Texas Department of Family & Protective Services (DFPS), children and youth with a history of child welfare involvement are especially vulnerable to human trafficking. Learning how to recognize the red flags of human trafficking is critically important for child welfare professionals.

The DFPS Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Division educates and spreads awareness to identify, report, recover, and restore child and youth victims of trafficking who are served by DFPS. The division created a webpage with information on Texas’ Human Trafficking Prevention Month and published a 2023 Participation Guide with resources, including registration for key events such as a Lunch and Learn Series that occurs every Friday in January 2023. For more information, please contact HumanTrafficking@dfps.texas.gov.

The Office of the Texas Governor’s Child Sex Trafficking Team (CSTT) builds capacity in Texas to serve victims of trafficking and to raise awareness to prevent, interdict, and prosecute child exploitation. The CSTT team provides awareness materials, education resources, and research for judges, attorneys, child welfare professionals, and other stakeholders related to child sex trafficking, all of which are available on the Office of the Governor’s website.

The Office of the Texas Governor and DFPS partner on the Governor’s Response Against Child Exploitation (GRACE) initiative, which envisions ending human trafficking, helping survivors heal and flourish, and protecting vulnerable populations. The GRACE initiative empowers leaders of diverse faith communities throughout Texas to improve awareness, service capacity, and prevention efforts of human trafficking.

On January 11, 2023, DFPS, the Texas Attorney General, and the Office of the Governor encourage all Texans to wear the color blue and use #WearBlueDay to share pictures on social media in an effort to spread awareness of National Human Trafficking Awareness Day.

By utilizing the above resources, judges and attorneys can actively engage in human trafficking awareness and prevention, to the benefit of children, youth, and families experiencing the child welfare system in Texas.