New Efforts Announced to Strengthen Statewide Response and Ensure Long-Term Support for Victims
LAS VEGAS, NV – October 7, 2020 – United Way of Southern Nevada (UWSN), UPS and ImpactNV are proud to announce a new effort to catalyze collective action towards ending human trafficking in Southern Nevada. With the support of UPS, UWSN and ImpactNV are building the infrastructure to combat and end human trafficking and ensure all trafficking victims have access to a path to a healthy and productive life. ImpactNV’s Shared Future Fund, launched in 2019 to address Southern Nevada social issues, will assist in fueling these efforts.
“We are bringing the combined resources of United Way of Southern Nevada, UPS and ImpactNV to the fight to address human trafficking, which interrupts the cradle-to-career pipeline we are building to ensure our students achieve educational success,” said Kyle B. Rahn, President and CEO, United Way of Southern Nevada. “We look forward to supporting the efforts underway and bringing this issue to the forefront of our community through this exciting partnership.”
In 2017, Nevada was ranked 10th in the nation for the number of human trafficking cases reported to the National Human Trafficking Hotline. At least 92 percent of the reported cases involved sex trafficking and 23 percent of the sex trafficking cases involved minors. Nevada ranks second for the highest number of sex trafficking cases per 100,000 residents in the country with more than twice the national average.
“ImpactNV has a proven track record for accelerating and deploying evidence-based solutions that solve for systemic challenges facing Southern Nevada’s most vulnerable populations. Last year, ImpactNV convened various human trafficking workshops to assess and address Southern Nevada’s human trafficking issues through grants provided by Caesars Entertainment,” said Lauren Boitel, executive director, ImpactNV. “Our partnership with United Way of Southern Nevada, with generous financial support from UPS, allows us to ensure our findings shape both actions and policies which will lead us toward the elimination of human trafficking.”
United Way of Southern Nevada and ImpactNV are coordinating existing efforts to address human trafficking under one umbrella, ensuring partners can share information, coordinate efforts, build capacity for service providers, and educate community leaders. With organizations including government agencies, law enforcement, corporate leaders and service providers already working to combat human trafficking in Nevada, the partnership will uplift their efforts and create broad community support for the collaborative work to end human trafficking.
Key to this approach is the creation of a Nevada Policy Council on Human Trafficking, a diverse cross-section of community leaders pursuing long-term systemic strategies to decrease human trafficking in Nevada. Through legislative action and business investment, the Policy Council will strengthen the statewide counter-trafficking system, build collaboration between counter-trafficking sectors, and improve the quality of life for survivors and at-risk victims of human trafficking.
The collaboration is fueled by the charitable contributions of UPS and its employees and the Shared Future Fund, a first-of-its-kind model in Southern Nevada launched by ImpactNV and Caesars Entertainment that seeks to uplift the region’s most vulnerable women and children by addressing pressing social issues including human trafficking, homelessness and immigrant integration.
“UPS employees contributed $3 million over the past two years to support the fight against human trafficking,” said Nikki Clifton, UPS VP of Global Public Affairs. “Our drivers are trained to spot and report trafficking activity. With this new collaboration, we’re able to do even more to prevent trafficking from occurring and help the survivors regain their lives.”
The project is part of a larger body of work overseen by United Way Worldwide’s Center on Human Trafficking, which has partnered with UPS over the last few year to create training for local United Ways and their partners on how to spot signs of trafficking and what to do in response United Way of Southern Nevada is one of four local United Ways developing community-based approaches to human trafficking.
To learn more, contact Laurie Mann, Vice President of Marketing at 702-563-7813 or LaurieM@uwsn.org
About United Way of Southern Nevada:
United Way of Southern Nevada unites our community to improve people’s lives. We bring donors, volunteers, nonprofits, and businesses together to help children enter school ready to learn, help high school students reach graduation day, and support individuals working to earn a degree or certification, all while creating stability for their families. Together, we step into the ring and invite others to stand with us as a united front against social injustices and forces keeping our community’s most vulnerable residents from a good life. We are bold and innovative to solve our toughest problems. Together, we fight for the future of our community – and we will win. Join us at uwsn.org.
About ImpactNV
ImpactNV is a 501c3 nonprofit founded in 2008 through public and private partnership that brings leaders together to address our most pressing needs in order to build a better community. ImpactNV focuses on Triple Bottom Line community development by catalyzing systems level change via impactful projects and programming such as hosting Nevada’s only comprehensive sustainability summit, ConveneNV and annually publishing Nevada’s State of Sustainability Report. For more information, please visit impact-nv.org.