Joanna Orban

Copy Editor

A group of Idaho State University students recently founded a club called ISU Students Against Child Slavery. The club is a smaller part of the larger organization called Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R). This nonprofit organization founded in 2013 has the following mission statement, “We’ve gathered the world’s experts in extraction operations and in anti-child trafficking efforts to bring an end to child slavery. O.U.R.’s Ops Team consists of former CIA, past and current law enforcement, and highly skilled operatives that lead coordinated identification and extraction efforts.”

ISU’s branch of this organization was founded last semester, by several physician assistant (PA) students, including Chris Dunn. Dunn who is in his second year of PA school founded the club because “Our job is twofold, one to spread education, so people know the signs and can protect themselves and their friends. The second part is to be an efficient fundraiser for O.U.R. It’s a large part of what we do.” Dunn who has wanted to get involved in anti-human trafficking for a while chose O.U.R due to their hands-on approach, “There’s a lot of organizations out there that build awareness and try to change laws, those are really important, but I really like the fact that O.U.R went out and did operations to get people out of those situations.”

O.U.R works closely with law enforcement both in the United States and internationally to hold training as well as to conduct rescue operations. According to O.U.R’s website, from July to September of last year, the organization was involved in 183 operations worldwide. As the group is a nonprofit organization, it relies on donations to continue its mission.

Dunn and his fellow group members plan to fundraise for the organization by holding awareness events and hopefully, once COVID-19 is over by doing virtual fun runs and other events to get the community involved. Dunn and his fellow members hope to be part of the ISU Events Fair if that occurs. “We’re brainstorming some ideas but it kind of depends on what regulations the school puts out on how we can make events happen. The goal is to have one small event a month, if not every couple of months,” said Dunn.

As mentioned previously one of the main goals of this club is to promote education among students, both on human trafficking and how to avoid it. “It is important to let them know that there are dangers out there that they haven’t thought about,” said Dunn. “Students want to get involved in things and I think this is a topic that is really starting to come to light across the nation.”

Students who are interested in joining the club can reach out to Dunn, whose email is ude.usinull@1nnudnhoj, or the club vice president, Mandy Coulsey whose email is ude.usinull@dnamluoc.

According to Coulsey, “A lot of people think of human trafficking as something that happens far away in other countries. The reality is that this is happening to children much much closer to home, sometimes even by their own parents and guardians. We, as PA students want to be aware of what it may look like when we see it in our future patients to help where we can.”

Another goal Dunn and his fellow group members have is to start building up the membership of the group. This is important for the group as many members, including Dunn, will be graduating in the coming semesters and they would like the club to continue on campus once they have graduated.

The main goal remains to educate students so that they can be aware of the signs of human trafficking. According to Coulsey, “ISU is sending students out into so many different fields and if we’re all aware of the warning signs of what trafficking looks like, maybe we can respond to that better on our respective areas of expertise.”