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Student groups housed in the Student Activities Center contributed photographs to a mural, develo

People noisily made haste to find seats in a Royce Hall auditorium adorned with flags from the international community on Tuesday night – but they were not there for the type of performance that usually takes place inside the building during evening hours.

It was an event meant to offer insight into the callous reality of human trafficking and its prevalence in places most don’t expect, including the United States.

UCLA played host to the second annual Human Trafficking Conference, a forum to “raise awareness of human trafficking and to shed light on where it is happening, the magnitude of the issue and the level of derogation that exists,” said Mary Shuttleworth, president of the International Foundation for Human Rights.

Human trafficking refers to the movement of people against their will for the purpose of sexual or labor exploitation.

An estimated 600,000 to 800,000 men, women and children are trafficked into the United States each year, and approximately 80 percent are female and 50 percent are minors, according to the U.S. Department of State database.

“It’s amazing that we think we’re isolated, but at the same time we live in a city with high prevalence of human trafficking,” said Chris Liem, a second-year art student. “I don’t think I’m going to change the world, but I think just being more aware may definitely help change something.”

A recent study by the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center found more than 500 cases of forced labor in California in 2005, said Imelda Buncab of Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, Los Angeles.

She said the study concluded that Los Angeles had the highest number of cases of forced labor among cities in California, with San Francisco second.

Guest speaker Dottie Laster, the administrator of the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force, discussed ways to become active participants for the cause.

Laster said people can take the initiative by holding conferences and continuing efforts to educate.

Human traffickers do not grant basic human rights to those who fall victim to that exploitation, Shuttleworth said. They are often used as human shields in war, as laborers in dangerous conditions and as prostitutes or for other forms of sexual exploitation.

At the start of the conference, Shuttleworth described countries as origin countries, or places where victims of human trafficking usually come from; transit countries, or areas that serve as facilitators to the traffickers’ final destinations; and finally, destination countries or user countries, where traffickers exploit the victims.

The United States was named as a destination country.

And while this sort of black market may seem distant to most, an estimated 14,000 people are trafficked into the U.S. every year, according to a report by the U.S. Attorney General in 2005.

To combat human trafficking in the United States, President Bush signed the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003, which increased responsibilities of the U.S. government for anti-trafficking measures.

Shuttleworth and the International Foundation for Human Rights are hoping to solve the international problem with short-term goals that may eventually help achieve the long-term goal of ending human trafficking.

The foundation hopes to educate others and teach children the United Nations declaration of human rights to which they are entitled.

“We hope (those children) will become advocates of anti-trafficking and help protect the human rights of others,” Shuttleworth said.

Youth for Human Rights International (YHRI), a daughter branch of the foundation, also has a chapter within the UCLA campus.

Kay D’Souza, president of YHRI, said she felt compelled to become involved because “basic rights is something everyone should know about even if they are taken for granted or, more importantly, if they are denied (human rights).”