Supes elect new chairman for 2024

In the regular meeting for the Madera County Board of Supervisors. the Board elected a new chairman, listened to a presentation from the Madera County Historical Society, and proclaimed the month of January as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Awareness Month.

In a discussion led by Devon Martinez, the Board listened to some troubling statistics about human trafficking. As many are unaware, California has some of the highest activity for human trafficking in the nation, due to it’s location, Martinez presented. 

In 2021 it was estimated that one in six runaways was likely to be child sex trafficking victims with an average age of 15-years-old. The International Labor Organization has recognized there to be about 27.6 million people in forced labor, with about 12 percent of those victims being children.