Councilwoman Regina Lackey — who helped lead efforts earlier this year to sound the alarm about sex trafficking of youth — is stepping up her efforts.
Lackey has:
*worked with Supervisor Sonny Dhailwal to secure county funds that will be used to produce stickers for placement in businesses of bathrooms — targeting the Highway 99 corridor — as well as school bathrooms throughout the county displaying national and local help lines for sex trafficking victims.
*organized a sex trafficking awareness event dubbed “The Freedom Walk” for downtown on Saturday, Nov. 7, from 10 a.m. to noon at Library Park.
Lackey joined forces with fellow Manteca resident and Stop Human Trafficking founder Troy Stein to stage anawareness town hall at the transit stationed attended by more than 300 people last year.
“People aren’t aware it happens in Manteca,” Lackey said. “It happens everywhere.”
California consistently ranks as a top destination state in the USA and a primary hub for human trafficking, accounting for the highest percentage — roughly 11% to 12% — of cases nationwide.
There is no single exact total for all human trafficking victims in the United States because the hidden nature of the crime makes precise counting difficult. However, recent data from the National Human Trafficking Hotline reported 15,085 potential human trafficking cases involving 21,457 potential victims in a single recent year, while broader academic and advocacy estimates suggest hundreds of thousands to enslaved or trafficked individuals in the U.S.
*Of the reported cases, roughly 6,201 involved sex trafficking, 2,400 involved labor trafficking, and 1,607 involved both.
*Reported victims include approximately 8,650 adults, 2,221 minors, 9,931 females, and 3,272 males in measured data subsets.
The Nov. 7 Freedom Walk — which is not a fundraiser but has a $25 fee to cover the costs of a T-shirt and a blindfold participants will receive plus cover costs associated with the event — will go from Library Park down Center Street to Powers to Yosemite and back to Library Park.
The Thomas Toy Community will host a water hydration station at Freemont and Yosemite.
Lackey said the blindfold is symbolic of how those luring/forcing victims into the human trafficking trade are cut off from the rest of the world.
The blindfold will be used as part of a demonstration during the rally portion of the Freedom Walk.
Hosted by New Life Church, more information on the Freedom Walk in Manteca can be accessed by going to stophumantrafficking.us and going to the events pulldown tab.
Similar Freedom Walks are being organized in Lodi and Stockton.
A human trafficking conference is also being planned for Jan. 11, 2027 at the Manteca Transit Center.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
