Alex Olivares is the coordinator of the new Southwest Florida Regional Center on Human Trafficking at Florida Gulf Coast University.
The center is the latest creation in a region with a history of human trafficking initiatives.
He said the organization will act as a liaison between services and law enforcement initiatives throughout the region.
“We’re going to provide the information, the trainings, the technical assistance and all that to the agencies that are actually working on the front lines… We really want to make all the agencies that are fighting this crime- to streamline them,” he said. “So that they’re all on the same page with everything. And you need a center body to do that.”
Olivares said human trafficking is a murky crime and prosecutions are limited. He plans to collect data exploring the high number of victims social service organizations report and the low number of arrests.
The center was started with a two-year grant from the Women’s Fund of Southwest Florida.
It’s the latest project at FGCU to combat human trafficking. Its predecessor was the Esperanza Project, which began in 2008.
Nola Theiss was the coordinator and trainer for the Esperanza Project. She said its funding eventually ran out.
Now, she’s the executive director of Human Trafficking Awareness Partnerships, and outreach and training director for the Southwest Florida Regional Human Trafficking Coalition.
Her work in fighting human trafficking dates back to 2005, when a task force she helped create with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office first met.
Theiss’ organizations work in many of the same arenas as the new center such as coordinating with law enforcement and victim service agencies.
She said she hopes the organizations can work together.
“If we can bring all that together, all the efforts together of doing the research… that would be very good,” she said. “The problem that I see as a potential problem is that we need to really communicate well and respect each other for what we have been accomplishing and not try to take over the work of one group or another.”
The proposal for the Southwest Florida Regional Center on Human Trafficking has not officially been approved by the university’s provost, but coordinator Alex Olivares and the new center are in the early stages of liaison work.
