Alabama resident Dixie Shannon said she was the victim of human trafficking while attending duel enrollment classes as a minor. Human trafficking can happen in a community’s own backyard, and most people never even realize it.

“When I was 17, I just knew there were a lot of demands out of me. They were asking me to do a lot of things I did not want to do,” Shannon said. “And I really didn’t know how to respond. They would just say ‘smoke some weed’ or ‘smoke some marijuana.’”

Shannon supports a new Alabama law that will require commercial driver’s license programs and junior colleges to provide human trafficking training. Truck drivers would learn how to spot it, prevent it, and how to report it.