Actor joins Paxton in anti-trafficking ad
McConaughey volunteers to issue slavery warning
AUSTIN — Texas icon Matthew McConaughey is warning people to help end human trafficking, sending a sobering message that is quickly going viral.
“When you hear the words human trafficking, you probably think that is something that only happens to people in other countries,” McConaughey said in a public service announcement from the Texas attorney general’s office he posted to his Facebook page Tuesday. “Texans, men, women, boys and girls are forced into a horrifying form of modern day slavery every day.”
More than 300,000 people are victims of sex or labor trafficking in Texas, according to Attorney General Ken Paxton, who appears alongside McConaughey in the commercial. Of those victims, approximately 79,000 are children are trafficked for sex, he said.
The ad promotes learning about ways to identify and report trafficking as part of its “Be the one” campaign. Telltale signs include changes in a child’s school attendance, appearance and demeanor, newly acquired luxury items and unexplained injuries. Red flags for adults include isolation from community, family or friends. Find more red flags for human trafficking here.
Twenty-one trafficking cases are currently pending in seven counties in Texas, according to the attorney general’s office. Since Paxton took office in 2016, the agency has gone to trial or agreed to plea deals on 19 trafficking cases. The courts have sentenced traffickers to more than 190 collective years in prison during that time, according to the agency.
The attorney general’s office prosecutes human traffickers and began circulating a moving educational video in January to teach state employees and the public how to identify people who could be victims. The video features harrowing stories of human trafficking victims, several of them children, who were rescued by neighbors or others who noticed something was amiss.
McConaughey volunteered his time to appear in the ad, according to the attorney general’s office. The taxpayer-funded ad was distributed to Texas television stations, which can run the PSA for free during time slots designated for public service announcements.
The ad was released 55 days before early voting begins for the attorney general’s bid for re-election.