The Tuscaloosa City Council hosted the West Alabama Human Trafficking Task force at the meeting on Tuesday, proclaiming January 2026 Human Trafficking Awareness Month.
Phil Simpson, captain of the task force, was present for the proclamation, along with guests from “Trafficking Hope,” a non-profit organization that helps combat human trafficking, and Hailey Adams, Miss University of Alabama 2026.
Simpson said the task force focuses its efforts in Tuscaloosa, with members from Tuscaloosa Police, Northport Police and the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff’s department. Simpson added that the funding of the task force relies on the council’s overtime budget, and the task force helps out its “neighbors.”
“The biggest misconception in our community and in the United States is that human trafficking is a white van,” Simpson said. “That is not the reality of what we have here in the United States.”
Simpson added that human trafficking is moving to the smartphone phone and the internet and that he wants to raise awareness to parents, schools and churches about the issue. He also added that the partners and the task force provide support for victims of human trafficking.
Forty percent of sex trafficking victims are recruited online, according to Alexandria Gelber, Deputy Chief for Policy and Legislation at the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the United States’ Department of Justice.
Maddox agreed with Simpson about the smartphone and the danger of the internet.
“We’re basically giving children the key on the internet to see things that link them with bad individuals who use that to exploit children and adults to human trafficking,” Maddox said.
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