When people hear of human trafficking in a place like Cullman, they’re typically incredulous.

“When I say ‘human trafficking,’ most people here, they laugh,” said Cullman Juvenile Probation Officer Kathy Wilson. “They think it’s not real.”

But human trafficking, perhaps better described as the exploitation of people — especially young people — for sex, is a problem that isn’t limited to major cities. Wilson said she has seen plenty of local cases over her 19-year career.

But in a smaller, semi-rural area like Cullman, human trafficking can take on more subtle and insidious forms.

“Here where we live, there is parental trafficking,” explained Wilson. “This is where you will have a parent who ‘sells’ their child to the neighbor to get their supply of heroin or crack, or whatever drug they may be on.

“Or, someone who ‘sells’ their girlfriend in high school for something like a case of beer. People think it doesn’t happen there; that it’s not real. It is very real.”

Wilson, along with Cullman County District Judge Kim Chaney, addressed the trafficking problem Tuesday evening before an open gathering of the Cullman County Republican women. The meeting is just one in a series of local events to raise awareness during the month of January, which is National Human Trafficking Awareness month.

Wilson said much of the awareness deficit surrounding human trafficking has to do with an understandable misperception of what “trafficking” really means.

“I do wish that they would change the name to ‘human exploitation,’ she explained. “When you think of ‘trafficking,’ you think of moving something, and that’s not what’s always happening.”

At the regional scale (and beyond), trafficking victims often do end up being transported like property. Wilson showed the group a studio-produced video that centers on the role of the Interstate corridor in moving trafficking victims through Alabama to points both east and west.

Wilson and Chaney are part of the recently-created Cullman County Human Trafficking Task Force, only the second such local-level task force in Alabama. The local task force recently formed a partnership with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for its Blue Campaign to raise human trafficking awareness.

Through the partnership with DHS, Blue Campaign materials, co-branded for the county and DHS, will be posted throughout Cullman County as part of a public awareness campaign to educate local residents on how to recognize and report potential instances of human trafficking.

In 2016, the local task force held free public training with the DHS Blue Campaign and partnered with the Human Trafficking Task Force for the Northern District of Alabama to provide free internet safety training.

The latest partnership aims to build on previous training in the county by spreading public awareness materials to members of the community, including more targeted materials to attorneys, juveniles, and members of the county’s trucking industry.