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Language Matters: Defining Human Trafficking and Slavery

“The way we think about problems is extremely sensitive to the language used to describe them.” - Deborah Stone, Policy Paradox Language is fundamentally how we as humans communicate meaning. We choose specific words to mean specific things. It is al

Human Trafficking Behind Bars and Beyond.

Their stories go beyond heart break, but they are true: At age 11, she ran away from home because of an alcoholic mother and a sexually abusive step-father. After three days on the street, a much older man befriended her, took her home, clothed and f

Will You Pay a Penny More? The Clinton Global Initiative and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

From a harvest of shame to grounds for hope, a group of farmworkers are changing the tomato growing industry and getting recognized for their effort. The Clinton Global Initiative this last week gave two of the co-founders of Coalition of Immokalee W

Basic Stages of Grooming for Sexual Exploitation

Sex trafficking exists within the larger commercial sex industry. Not all participants in the commercial sex industry are victims of trafficking, but many are. It becomes trafficking when someone is forced or coerced into the commercial sex trade aga

Child Exploitation: How Old or How High?

When he asked me in broken English with his heavy Vietnamese accent how old of a girl I was interested in, I felt nothing inside me. Watching him hold his hand at his waist and then moving it up to his chest, indicating the size of a girl I supposedl

The Plague of the Other

I have been moved recently, as a result of reading an outstanding book, "Esctatic Nation,” by Brenda Wineapple, to reflect once again on what I describe as “The Plague of the Other.” I refer here to the human tendency to lift ourselves up by comparin

Not just Awareness but Action - A Hawaii Nurse’s Path Toward Sex Trafficking Restoration

In a 2009 presentation by International Justice Mission, I was exposed to the heart breaking global atrocity of human trafficking. I knew the issue of slavery was an international problem yet was completely unaware of the scope of the issue existing

Rotherham, England and Child Sex Trafficking

On August 21st Alexis Jay released a report titled “Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham: 1997-2013.” Her findings have taken the human trafficking world by storm, as she claims more than 1,400 girls, mostly between the age

Haven

Here we are: Calcutta, India. A tiny group of us—one photographer, two writers, two justice-fighting wonders (of which I am not). We’re picking our way through the crowds and sewage and churn of poverty along a side-street in a city of which I may ne

What Can Ordinary People in Ordinary Places do to Bring and Sustain Freedom for the Enslaved?

The pungent smell of stale urine set me back a step. Rats rested in leisure. The sound of disease could be heard echoing off the worn walls, and if these walls could talk, as the saying goes, few could stomach the stories. I moved forward, up two fli