Sieda Community Action will be hosting Ruth Buckels for January’s National Human Trafficking Awareness Month. Ruth Buckels will present on Friday, January 26th in the Sieda Auditorium located at 725 West Second Street in Ottumwa, Iowa from 1:00 to 3:00 pm.

Sieda welcomes the public to come listen to Ruth Buckels. Ruth is the Achieving Maximum Potential (AMP) and Teens Against Human Trafficking (TAHT) Statewide Coordinator for Youth & Shelter Services in Ames, IA.  AMP is an advocacy program focused on youth voices initiating system change in the child welfare system. TAHT is a school focused program seeking to set up teams of youth in each school who will create safety in schools through education.  Ruth has been a licensed foster parent since 1988 and an adoptive parent since 2008.  Ruth has parented multiple survivors of human trafficking and advocates for all Iowa’s youth to learn about this crime and how it is thriving in Iowa.

President Barack Obama in 2011 designating January as the National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. The anniversary of this proclamation, January 11th, is known as National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. Slavery was abolished in 1865 by the Thirteenth Amendment in the USA, however, many forms still exist. The USA is the source, transit and destination country for modern slavery or human trafficking. Children, women, and men foreign or citizens of the USA are subject to human trafficking, sex trafficking, forced labor, involuntary servitude, forced marriage and debt bondage.

It is important to raise public awareness of modern slavery.