USC must bring awareness to human trafficking


Just a short distance from USC sits Staples Center, a stadium for concerts, conventions and professional basketball games. The venue holds just over 20,000 fans — enough space to fit all undergraduates at USC — with rows of seats packed with people elbow-to-elbow. 

Imagining the vast number of people it takes to fill the Staples Center makes it even more astounding that every year, around 20,000 people are trafficked into the United States, according to The Women’s Center.

Human trafficking refers to the illegal transportation and trade of people, often for forced labor or sexual slavery. People may have an understanding of what constitutes human trafficking, but often they picture it occurring in faraway places and have no idea how to solve it. 

California ranks as one of the worst states in the nation for human trafficking, and Los Angeles ranks as one of the worst cities. This past January demonstrated that fact when a human trafficking bust in California led to the rescue of dozens of victims and the arrests of hundreds of perpetrators. 

The prevalence of human trafficking within the community we live and attend school in makes USC’s lack of courses to educate its students on the problem all the more baffling. 

Admittedly, at least one school within USC has made a strong effort to educate the student body and surrounding community. The USC Dworak-Peck School of Social Work organized a panel of human trafficking survivors to talk about their experiences, looked at the root causes of human trafficking and reported tips on how to recognize it. 

But the School of Social Work is a graduate institution. So, while it has done a commendable job at highlighting the problem by offering solutions, it lacks widespread reach across the entire student body, thus leaving the undergraduate population unaware of the rampant problem and without the resources that could affect change. 

For these reasons, USC should offer a course that informs undergraduate students about human trafficking within the surrounding community.

In Fall 2017, USC offered Sociology 402, a class titled “Human Trafficking” that looked at what human trafficking means, its ideological foundations and its political issues. However, the class had five prerequisite courses. Although this class was a step in the right direction, as an upper division course, it narrowed the pool of students who could take it, thereby limiting its impact. Additionally, only 17 seats were opened for the course, adding another obstacle in taking the class. 

As of now, all the research at USC on human trafficking targets graduate students studying social work, which assumes that the only time undergraduates should learn about the issue is later in life when they choose to specialize in it.

Studying social work in graduate school should not be the only avenue for students to learn about this issue. College courses should expose students to new things and ideas, regardless of major. 

With this in mind, USC should create a general education course centered upon the foundations of human trafficking and the ways a student can help in the fight to end it. As a GE, a course about human trafficking would easily fulfill the social analysis requirement that is already in place. The “C” requirement delves into social analysis and currently consists of classes such as “Race and Class in Los Angeles” and “Citizenship and Public Ethics.”  A class about human trafficking would fit the curriculum. 

Offering  human trafficking as a lower division course would allow anyone who needs to fulfill the GE requirement or take elective courses to take it. This heightens awareness of the issue, which is extremely important in the fight to end human trafficking. 

USC tends to become a little bubble within the greater L.A. area, making it all the more important for students to learn about the problems at their doorstep. The prevalence of human trafficking is both startling and disheartening, making it all the more important to understand. 

If you wish to learn more about human trafficking and how to help, text “HELP” to 233733, or call 1-888-373-7888 to report human trafficking to the national hotline.