Human trafficking: New Milwaukee billboard project aims to curb

MILWAUKEE - January is Human Trafficking Awareness Month in Wisconsin, and new billboards throughout Milwaukee are hoping to scare traffickers straight.

The Serve Marketing agency and nonprofit Lacey’s Hope Project came together to help crack down on human trafficking by working to stop customers in their tracks.

The "Dear John" campaign uses billboards and bus shelters to target the demand side of human trafficking. These ads use scare tactics to show the consequences, like jail time, STIs and broken families. 

"We really wanted to target men because most PSA campaigns, you know, they either create general awareness or the red flags that people can see, if you see someone being trafficked, or they target the women," Serve Marketing creative director Gary Mueller said.

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Mueller said the ads are posted in areas of the city where experts say trafficking happens more often. He said over the years, Milwaukee's trafficking numbers have gone up and he hopes this approach helps bring them down.

"If it even convinces, you know, a couple of men that are on the fence about what they’re doing, scared about what they’re doing, we just want them to know that eventually, you’re going to get caught and there are consequences," Mueller said.

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Mueller said if the campaign is successful, he hopes more funding in the future could help expand it to other places outside of Milwaukee. He said focusing on decreasing the demand for human trafficking is the key.

"If you don’t do anything to reduce the demand side of trafficking, sex trafficking is never going to go away, it’s never going to be reduced," Mueller said.

The ads also direct viewers to No Happy Endings, a website with more statistics on human traffickers that are caught as well as resources for those struggling.