LeAnna Cumber ‘survivor’ ad stresses fight against human trafficking

A new ad from Jacksonville mayoral candidate LeAnna Gutierrez Cumber focuses on her work to stop human trafficking.

The 30-second “Survivor” underscores the current Republican City Council member’s work to fight that societal scourge, with a third-person narrator attesting to what Cumber has done.

“I’m a survivor of human trafficking and an advocate for vulnerable women in Jacksonville. That’s why I trust LeAnna Cumber,” asserts Chanel Toleston, a mother of four who was trafficked for two years who currently is an advocate for others who were subjugated to that sordid trade.

“LeAnna passed laws to crack down on sex trafficking, worked at a nonprofit to help survivors of domestic violence and started a legal clinic to help abused women get back on their feet,” Toleston adds. “LeAnna Cumber is a strong leader with a big heart. I trust her to stand up for women.”

Cumber has made her work against the sex trafficking trade central to her public service thus far. As the Florida Times-Union reported, she spent time after college working as the house manager at a shelter for women who were subject to violence in east Texas.

That experience led Cumber to introduce legislation, ultimately passed by the City Council, that “brought a new requirement for sex-trafficking education training for public lodging, gas station and convenience store employees so they could identify signs of trafficking,” as well as “public awareness signs inside hotel guest rooms and public restrooms.”

Meanwhile, another component of the law, which restricted adults under the age of 21 from performing in adult bars, is still being contested by owners of those establishments.

Though Cumber has since fallen out with Mayor Lenny Curry, who supports her arch-rival Daniel Davis in the mayoral race, Curry lauded her “strong leadership on this issue” contemporaneously.

See the new Cumber spot below.