NCJW partners with Gateway Transportation Center to install human trafficking posters

Tyson M. Pruitt
From left, Gateway Transportation Center manager Sonia Day; and NCJWSTL volunteer Mary Murphy, board member Marilen Pitler and program director Heather Silverman.

Gateway Transportation Center and the National Council of Jewish Women St. Louis (NCJWSTL) have partnered to install human trafficking posters in an effort to create awareness and stop human trafficking. Located in downtown St. Louis, the Gateway Transportation Center is the city of St. Louis multimodal transportation hub for passenger trains, long distance buses, public light rail and public bus service. The same poster hangs at the St. Louis County offices at Northwest Crossing.

“For the public, we wanted a poster that would both inform and provide a better understanding of what human trafficking looks like,” said NCJWSTL volunteer Mary Murphy.

“We wanted the poster to generate a conversation, encourage questions and enable our community to take action when they suspected something.  But most importantly, we wanted a poster that would catch the attention of any victim that walked by.  We wanted information that the victim of human trafficking would use to get help.”

NCJWSTL identified human trafficking as a significant problem in the region six years ago, after the U.S. Department of Justice named St. Louis in the top 20 jurisdictions for human trafficking. 

Since then NCJWSTL has worked to build awareness and change public policy to help combat human trafficking in our region and throughout the State of Missouri.