Tuscaloosa proclaims January 2025 Human Trafficking Awareness Month; task force thanks city for overtime support

Mayor Maddox read a proclamation at the Jan. 2 Tuscaloosa City Council meeting declaring January 2025 as Human Trafficking Awareness Month in Tuscaloosa and presented it to Captain Phil Simpson of the West Alabama Human Trafficking Task Force.

The proclamation says in part, “Whereas human trafficking is a public health issue and a crime that affects individual families and communities across generations, exploiting the most vulnerable among us and weakening our collective well-being,” and cites a global estimate of 27,600,000 people subject to human trafficking. The proclamation calls education the first step to eliminating trafficking and urges frontline responders, educators and parents to learn how to spot and report signs of trafficking.

Captain Phil Simpson, representing the West Alabama Human Trafficking Task Force and the Alabama Coalition on Human Trafficking, thanked the council and the mayor for supporting the task force’s work and allowing the task force to use the city’s overtime budget for operations. Simpson said that the task force has been conducting both investigations and education, and that officers have apprehended suspects who were operating in Tuscaloosa and in other states. “We are catching people, we are apprehending suspects on a regular basis who are not victimizing people in other places, but they're victimizing people here in Tuscaloosa,” Simpson said. He also noted the task force has assisted investigations outside Alabama that touched Tuscaloosa and has collaborated with other states’ commissions.

Officer Champion of the Police Department told the council the department had no objections to the items on the council’s agenda (this remark followed the proclamation presentation). Chief Blankley was acknowledged by Simpson as providing support to the task force.

The proclamation is ceremonial; no formal vote of the council was recorded on the proclamation itself. Mayor Maddox presented the proclamation to Captain Simpson at the meeting.

The task force asked the public to remain vigilant and to report suspected trafficking to law enforcement; the proclamation and Simpson’s remarks emphasized education and interagency cooperation as the primary tools cited at the meeting.