HAMPTON, Va. (WAVY) — A local Hampton woman is aiming to shine more of a light on human trafficking, starting a nonprofit to help educate others in hopes of preventing it in the future.
In an eye-opening encounter, Anna Glider was a witness to labor trafficking 26 years ago while at a restaurant in Thailand.
“One of our waiters, because we had two, was being physically abused by the manager,” Glider said.
She was so struck by the incident that, after learning more about it, she created ‘Anchor Project,’ a nonprofit aimed at education. Labor trafficking is just one of 17 types of trafficking she outlines on her website.
It strikes close to home — there was a case of labor trafficking in Williamsburg. Exposed in 2022, it involved a laundry business harboring over 100 illegal immigrants from El Salvador working under the threat of deportation.
“They were in the basement, and they were living there and working there, and they were chained to their chairs,” Glider said. “There were children, minors, and adults,” Glider said.
Glider says labor and sex trafficking are most common in our area. Recently, she was approached by a victim who said her father trafficked her when she was just four-years-old. Glider said a child can be trafficked by someone they know — like their parent, teacher, even their babysitter. She called for people to look for the signs.
“You start to notice changes in their clothes,” she said. “They’re starting to dress a little more provocatively, a little more differently, they’re breaking their curfew, they’re starting to have money. And you don’t know where that money is coming from.”
She said victims are lured in by promises of easy money and kept in on threats of public shame. Glider is partnering with Parents Against Trafficking, hoping to get into schools and talk to students.
“This is the priority,” she said. “Saving our children and making sure that our nation is aware that we have a problem and we need to talk more about it.”
She said the only stats we have now are of sex trafficking — and those are only based on arrests. Glider is working with local universities to get more accurate numbers on all forms of trafficking. The U.N. estimates there are more than 27 million victims of human trafficking, but only 115,000 have come forward.
You can learn more — and become a volunteer — by visiting AnchorProject.org.