Bucks Coalition Against Trafficking (BCAT)

Interested in learning more or joining?
Contact Elyse Hoekstra at elyse.hoekstra@novabucks.org.
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Quarterly Meetings
Please check back or join our mailing list for more information about the next quarterly meeting.
Everyone is welcome!
Coalition Partners
Aldie
Aria-Jefferson Health
Bensalem Township Police Department
Bensalem Township School District
Bucks County Area Agency on Aging
Bucks County Children and Youth Services
Bucks County Community College
Bucks County Department of Behavioral Health
Bucks County Department of Corrections
Bucks County Department of Mental Health
Bucks County Drug and Alcohol Commission
Bucks County Intermediate Unit
Bucks County Juvenile Probation
Bucks County Office of the District Attorney
Bucks County Youth Center
Christ’s Home
FBI
Homeland Security
Kids Peace
NOVA
Opportunity Council, Inc.
Penn Foundation
Pyramid Healthcare
Quakertown Police Department
SOAR, Corp.
Soroptimists International of Indian Rock
The Well/Worthwhile Wear
Valley Youth House/Synergy Project
YWCA/Bucks County
…and countless, invaluable Community Members
BCAT is comprised of four subcommittees:
Victim Focus
The Victim Focus subcommittee is focused on prevention, intervention, and rehabilitation for victims of human trafficking. It is also concentrated on collaboration with existing organizations to utilize available resources as well as identifying unmet needs to effectively help victims.
Community Outreach
The Community Outreach subcommittee is focused on educating the community about the prevalence of human trafficking in Bucks County. This subcommittee also empowers the community to spread awareness, address demand, and respond to potential trafficking situations.
Law Enforcement and Prosecution
The Law Enforcement and Prosecution subcommittee is focused on training and empowering law enforcement and prosecutors to effectively identify and respond to human trafficking situations and victims.
Legislation and Public Policy
The Legislation and Public Policy subcommittee is focused on identifying public policy issues and opportunities to influence legislative initiatives related to human trafficking as well as educating the coalition and the community on current proposed legislation.
About Human Trafficking
What is Human Trafficking?
Sex trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the purposes of a commercial sex act, in which the commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age (22 USC § 7102).
Labor trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purposes of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery (22 USC § 7102).
What's the scale?
Source: Polaris Project https://polarisproject.org/human-trafficking/facts
Who is being trafficked?
Why don’t more people know?
Victims often go unnoticed by society because they are being hidden behind a widely socially accepted sex industry.
Commercial sexual exploitation is a hidden crime. It happens behind closed doors in hotel rooms, illicit spas and massage parlors, online, among other venues.