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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

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

David Brion Davis: An Appreciation

On July 28, President Obama awarded the National Humanities Medal to eminent historian of slavery David Brion Davis. This is no small achievement. The Medal is the highest honor bestowed by the National Endowment for the Humanities, a prize that “hon

ISIS, Yazidis and Crimes of Sex Trafficking in Iraq

You’ve certainly heard about the terror in Iraq during the last month with reports of 200,000 Iraqis fleeing for their lives as a radical Islamic terrorists attack, kill and rape tens of thousands. In addition to the obvious human rights abuses, we’r

Aftercare and Slave Labor - The Necessity to Care for Others

When you read about the suffering of people in slavery, it is hard to conceive how anyone who survives slavery could ever hope to recover and lead a normal life. Both historic slavery and modern day human trafficking inflict seemingly unbearable suff

What It Takes for Real and Lasting Progress in Eradicating Contemporary Slavery

Earlier this year I developed a paper upon which this article is drawn. My purpose in developing that paper was to gather learnings from the history of reform movements which could inform how we tackle the challenge of eradicating contemporary slaver