Pharmacists Provide Safe Spaces to Support Potential Trafficking Victims

In the rush of a typical day at a community pharmacy, it can be easy to focus on the numbers such as prescriptions filled, vaccines administered, and performance metrics. But Ronda Marie Chakolis-Hassan, PharmD, MPH, community health strategist at HueMAN Partnership, said those metrics fade into the background the moment a patient steps up to the counter.

“Our job is to worry about the people who are directly in front of us,” she said. It’s a simple philosophy with profound implications—especially when the patients in front of her may be victims of human trafficking or abuse.

Human trafficking is often imagined as an underground crime tied primarily to sex work. Yet advocates and experts have long warned that this picture is incomplete. Across the United States, trafficking also takes the form of labor exploitation in farms, factories, and remote industrial regions. In Minnesota’s Iron Range and agricultural communities, labor trafficking is an especially urgent concern, affecting workers who may lack stable housing, legal documentation, or access to primary care.

At the community pharmacy, they may arrive with multiple antibiotics, inconsistent prescriptions, or no regular physician—subtle but telling red flags to a trained eye. Community pharmacists, embedded in neighborhoods and rural towns, occupy a uniquely trusted position. They build ongoing relationships with patients, see them regularly, and notice changes others might miss. Yet most pharmacists never receive scenario-based training on trafficking in pharmacy school.

In this interview, Chkolis discusses how she recognizes potential trafficking, why relationship-building matters more than metrics, and how pharmacies can become safer spaces for some of society’s most vulnerable people.

“It’s important that we utilize existing signals,” she said. “I've actually been in a room, and I've started with my signal, and I've done this even when I'm talking, and people will look at me and then they won't respond. They recognize it, but they gotta be willing to respond.”