Catholic Charities of Louisville and other Kentucky organizations will share a $240,000 federal grant to combat human trafficking.It's one of five national awards from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to find solutions to the trafficking problem, which commonly involves people who are brought into this country and forced into prostitution or slave labor.Catholic Charities spokesperson Bart Weigel says the money will be shared with agencies in Lexington, Covington, Frankfort and elsewhere."Its purpose is to go ahead and provide resources to assist in outreach as far as public awareness in identifying victims of this crime, also support and training for those types of communities that would be working with those victims," Weigel said.Weigel adds that it's difficult to determine how many human trafficking victims there are in Kentucky because of its secretive nature.The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops estimates that as many as 17,000 men, women and children are trafficked into this country each year and subjected to modern-day slavery.
Rick Howlett is host of WFPL's weekly talk show, "In Conversation." Email Rick at rhowlett@lpm.org.