Petaluma campaign seeks to end child trafficking

A local nonprofit has teamed with a horse transportation company to take its message on the road.|

Most people have seen a long, sleek horse trailer traveling down the highway. A Petaluma nonprofit is hoping that, if the right person sees one of these vehicles, they might be inspired to save a victim of child sex trafficking.

The Polly Klaas Foundation is teaming up with KC Horse Transport to raise awareness on sex trafficking and missing children. The equine transportation company is putting posters advertising the Polly Klaas Foundation on their fleet of horse transport trailers and trucks in a campaign that started late January.

The campaign is meant to help spread awareness that missing children and human trafficking can happen anywhere.

“Human trafficking is something that happens locally,” Polly Klaas Foundation Executive Director Raine Howe said. “Most people don’t think it happens but it happens in Petaluma and it happens all over Sonoma County.”

The idea came about when the owners of KC Horse Transport saw one of the Polly Klaas Foundation’s missing child posters. They thought they could help reach a wider audience by putting the posters on their fleet of trailers, and they reached out the Polly Klaas Foundation.

Based in San Luis Obispo County, KC Horse Transport is owned and operated by Karrie Cargill Sahadi and her daughter, Kaylie McKnight.

“It was the daughter’s idea,” Howe said. “When I asked the daughter what made her want to do this, she said that her mom told her to do a good deed every day even if it’s just like opening the door for somebody.”

Howe describes the two as “get it done” kind of people. The two helped push the project forward she said.

“The whole idea started a month ago, we got it going really fast.” Howe said. “We can take action really quickly.”

The Polly Klaas Foundation was founded in 1993 after the kidnapping of Polly Klaas from her Petaluma home. Today, they help find kids from all 50 states. According to Howe, about 800 children go missing from Sonoma County, and 85 percent of them are runaways. One in five of runaway cases become victims of sex trafficking.

While the Polly Klaas Foundation is trying to reach Sonoma County citizens, Howe hopes that these posters will have an effect nationwide. The KC Foundation fleet travel all over the country for races and events. They even bring horses from Washington state all the way to Kentucky for the Kentucky Derby.

The trucks and the trailers travel thousands of miles and pass through different towns and communities. Howe hopes the ads will educate people on the dangers of sex trafficking. She points out that there are no areas that are free from missing children and human trafficking.

“Missing children is an issue that doesn’t just happen in cities, it happens in rural areas too,” she said. “So these trailers are passing through really dense areas and also really rural areas.”

KC Horse Transport isn’t the only business helping out. Santa Anita Raceway donated money to fund the vinyl posters. B&H Printing ironed the vinyl on to the side of the trucks.

“Everyone really pitched in to make this happen,” Howe said.

The posters contain a general warning about sex trafficking and include the Polly Klaas Foundation’s phone number and the hotline for people who suspect human trafficking is occurring.

“We decided the best thing to do was to have a poster that spoke about the trafficking of minors in general instead of one particular missing child poster,” Howe said.

Howe hopes that the posters will inspire people to take action. The Polly Klaas Foundation deals with about 300 cases a year. The ads are meant to make people aware that there is action they can take if the see something suspicious.

“Let’s say you go out of town and you’re staying at a motel. You see a young person that’s going in and out of that hotel room with different adults. There’s something kind of off about that. So, you can tell the hotel manager or call the police,” Howe said.

Howe says that it’s something that anybody can help with.

“Everybody has the individual power to help put an end to human trafficking,” she said. “It’s really captured here. It says, spot it, stop it, report it. It’s something that we can all collectively do. It doesn’t cost anything. It just takes caring about it and knowing about it so you know what to look for.”

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