TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — January is National Human Trafficking Prevention Month and every year since 2010, the president has used the month to raise awareness of the crime and educate the public on how to prevent it.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez are taking that message to the Sunshine State with a new human trafficking prevention initiative they announced on Wednesday.
It's called the "100 Percent Club" in honor of businesses that are 100 percent committed to training 100 percent of their employees on how to spot the signs of human trafficking and report it, Moody explained.
The initiative is a more official way to take the training from the Florida Alliance to End Human Trafficking to businesses and employees throughout the state.
Businesses that sign up will receive training tools including reference cards with physical and verbal signs of human trafficking to look out for as well as a new dedicated phone number to call to report the potential crime.
“This will help us in Florida go after those heinous individuals that want to profit off others’ pain," Moody said.
The attorney general said they're seeking to train 100,000 folks in Florida through this initiative this year.
"On behalf of Governor DeSantis and myself, we truly understand the threat that human trafficking poses to Floridians. You’ve heard the statistic that we rank third in terms of calls to the national hotline — that is a number that we are not content with," Nuñez said. “We are not going to stand idly by."
Moody said the inspiration for this initiative came from that harrowing statistic as well as businesses reaching out for ways to help fight human trafficking.
On Jan. 11, which is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day, the attorney general led an effort to light up Florida’s Historic Capitol blue to raise awareness for the crime.