By Jordan Meadows
Staff Writer
The North Carolina Coalition Against Human Trafficking (NCCAHT) hosted its statewide “Collective Impact: NC Anti-Trafficking Conference” on Tuesday at Campbell University’s Oscar N. Harris Student Union in Buies Creek.
The one-day event included service providers, law enforcement, educators and community leaders from across the state to strengthen collaboration and develop a more unified response to what experts describe as a complex and rapidly evolving criminal industry.
At the center of the conference was keynote speaker Kiricka Yarbough Smith, a leading figure in North Carolina’s anti-trafficking movement whose career spans more than two decades in social work and advocacy.
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mith currently serves as Human Trafficking Program Director for the North Carolina Council for Women and Youth Involvement and has held leadership roles with the North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault and the NCCAHT. Her work has focused on building statewide systems of support, training law enforcement and service providers, and addressing the intersections of trafficking with domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse and systemic inequities.
Smith’s path into anti-trafficking work was shaped by her early career in mental health and developmental disability services, where she witnessed firsthand the impact of interpersonal violence on families and communities. A native of Roxboro in Person County, she has emphasized the disproportionate impact trafficking has on Black and Brown communities, particularly in rural areas where resources are limited and oversight is often weaker.
“As a black woman from rural North Carolina, I felt more and more compelled to do the work,” Smith said. “A larger percentage of trafficking victims are African American.”
Her work has consistently emphasized that trafficking does not exist in isolation but emerges from broader patterns of poverty, housing instability, substance use and systemic neglect. NCCAHT focuses on the concept of “collective impact,” a framework that calls for shared goals, coordinated strategies and sustained collaboration among stakeholders of a community, not just law enforcement. She has identified one of the state’s biggest challenges as a lack of coordination across agencies, with organizations often operating in silos despite pursuing similar goals.
“We have so many passionate people doing really good work,” she said, “but human trafficking is such a complex issue that it’s hard to address it effectively without a unified system.”
Smith also points to geographic disparities in how trafficking is identified and addressed. While urban centers such as Charlotte, Raleigh, Fayetteville and Wilmington report higher numbers of cases, advocates believe trafficking is significantly underreported in rural communities. These areas present ideal conditions for traffickers due to isolation and limited access to services. Labor trafficking, in particular, is often overlooked, with cases emerging in industries such as agriculture, food processing and personal care services.
The conference featured speakers including leaders from organizations such as the Charlotte Metro Human Trafficking Task Force, the NC Demand Reduction Task Force, Safe Alliance and Goodwill Industries of Eastern North Carolina.
The urgency of the issue is underscored by data from the National Human Trafficking Hotline, which ranks North Carolina ninth in the nation for reported trafficking cases. In response, state lawmakers are advancing legislation aimed at improving prevention, enforcement and victim support.
“I think in North Carolina, we've been recognizing the issue and responding to it for the last 10 years,” Smith said. “But I feel like we're at a turning point—we have the data, we have policies, our legislators have been pretty good at passing some really good policies related to trafficking here in North Carolina.”
Senate Bill 1007, currently under consideration in the Senate Judiciary Committee, proposes a coordinated statewide system for collecting and sharing trafficking-related data among law enforcement agencies, service organizations and policymakers.
