BELMONT COUNTY, Ohio – Belmont County is not immune to the sex trade. but one organization is helping victims.
JaQue Galloway, Tri-County Help Center’s Sexual Assault Program Facilitator, tells River News Network that her center saw 30 women who were the victims of sex trafficking in 2024. The help center serves Belmont, Harrison and Monroe Counties.
Earlier this week, the Belmont County Commissioners proclaimed January as Human Trafficking Prevention Month, and Galloway hopes to educate the community on how to stop trafficking and help victims.
we’ve served about 30 .
JaQue Galloway, Tri-County Help Center’s Sexual Assault Program Facilitator
survivors in the past year. A lot of survivors that we work with might not identify as survivors of human trafficking. We have developed a screening with our statewide coalition on helping survivors and their family members learn what human trafficking looks like in our three -county area. We might have a survivor that will come to us for help after a sexual assault or an instance of domestic violence and once we complete that screening or we start to talk to the survivor, we learn
Trafficking going on. So we really want to help survivors to receive that education and come to that realization and to seek the appropriate help.
Galloway added that people can be trafficked for labor, not just sex work. Sometimes people are exploited both for labor and sex.
we see a lot of people that have a blend, so they’re either being a survivor of sex trafficking and labor trafficking or slowly sex trafficking.
JaQue Galloway, Tri-County Help Center’s Sexual Assault Program Facilitator
We are still working on identifying survivors of labor trafficking. We are limited on resources in the county for survivors of labor trafficking. So that’s been an area that we really do want to spend a lot of time, providing outreach and to reach survivors and get them help.
Galloway said human trafficking is increasing statewide, even in Belmont and surrounding counties. She encourages anyone who needs help or who has questions to call Tri-County Help Center at 740-695-5441 or visit their website.
depending on the need we’re available 24/7, if someone needs a safe place to stay, we have our shelter, if they need an advocate to help them report, to help them work with local law enforcement. Again, we’re available 24/7, we have an on-call person 24/7, so we really encourage them even if they have a small question or just are not sure what they want to do.
JaQue Galloway, Tri-County Help Center’s Sexual Assault Program Facilitator
