Local leaders discuss Warren County human trafficking

GLENS FALLS, N.Y. (NEWS10) – Leaders in Warren County held a panel discussion on Thursday to find ways to address human trafficking. This was the second community conversation focused on strengthening partnerships to address local human trafficking issues.

The Lower Adirondack Alliance for Freedom brought together the Warren County District Attorney Jason Carusone, Sheriff Jim LaFarr, as well as the Warren-Washington Care Center and Planned Parenthood to raise awareness.

Lisa DeWeese is a supervisor for Survivor Support Services at Planned Parenthood and said raising awareness is a challenge.

“Letting the community know, yes it is happening here. I think some people feel it happens in other countries and other places, and it’s here,” said DeWeese.

The coalition met at the Queensbury Hotel where a local coalition invited leaders from government agencies and non profit organizations to discuss ways to tackle human trafficking.

LaFarr said joining the coalition was important because human trafficking often means addressing sex and labor trafficking, creating complicated challenges. 

“And some might not even realize that they are victims themselves. Some are very reluctant to report and I learned very early that I needed to be a part of this group, not just for our sheriff’s office, but for our community. It’s a wonderful coalition,” said LaFarr.

Also in attendance was Nadia Giumarra, a forensic nurse at Glens Falls Hospital. She echoed what DeWeese said about the importance of raising awareness.

“I think that people think about human trafficking as what they see in the movies and they need to know what it looks like so they can maybe identify and try to help somebody. so it’s important that they know it’s happening in our communities,” said Giumarra. 

She describes the barriers medical professionals face and how victims feel. 

“Embarrassment or shame but there’s fear too. If they’ve been trafficked sometimes they are programmed to not trust healthcare professionals, or law-enforcement, anyone willing to help them. And they’re also in crisis and that’s a very hard time to help anybody, their brain is in that fight, flight or freeze mode,” said Giumarra. She said her team takes a non-judgemental approach.

“We care and we care about their safety. And there are things in the community that we can connect them to that will help,” said Giumarra. 

DeWeese said the hospital notifies her team when a victim is admitted.

“It can be comforting them, it can be letting them know what their rights are, walking them through whether or not they want to press charges. Really I think the biggest thing is building a rapport with the victim and then from there kind of deciding what it is that they’re looking to do going forward,” said DeWeese. She said they work closely with the sheriff’s office.

“And sometimes we’ll lean on them to say, ‘How do I make this person more safe? What else can I add? What do you know? Can you patrol that area more often, because we know it’s a heightened time, an O.P. (order of protection) has just been issued, could you patrol there a bit little more closely?’” said DeWeese. 

Sheriff LaFarr said since the beginning of the year they have been working with the D.A.’s Office to connect people to resources. 

“I would like our team to start shifting their focus, asking a few additional questions and though there needs to be maybe that criminal prosecution, if we work with our district attorney’s office crime victims advocates, we can shift that away from so much to focus on the prosecution and more in the way of assistance,” said LaFarr.

He urges the community to not hesitate and call 9-1-1 if they see something suspicious.