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Helping Others Who Need Our Help in Recognition of Our Common Humanity

More than a decade ago, noted historian Jim Horton was commenting about the meaning of the Underground Railroad, and he said something close to the following: That powerful statement has motivated me from the day I heard it. It lies at the heart of

Sex Trafficking and the Carceral State

Last week The Daily Beast reported—in a sensational title, “Sex Trafficking Victims, Not ‘Prostitutes,’ Finally Getting Help (and a New Name) in Court”—that New York has set up a new provisional court system that tries to funnel arrested sex workers

After Aftercare

Eradicating slavery means a commitment to combating the underlying causes of exploitation, and recognizing that the road to true recovery for survivors is one that does not end with emergency aftercare. After Aftercare Many shelters and organizations

If not us, then who? An invitation to action.

As I wander though Cincinnati’s National Underground Railroad Freedom Center gift shop, the noise of the everyday world slips away and the quiet of this splendid building soothes me. It is a place where there is plenty of space to think, to reflect a

Islam and the Fight Against Human Trafficking

If you are reading this in the United States, you are probably wary, if not critical, of the religion of Islam. Since 2001, the media has paraded horrific images of Isis fighters, Al-qaeda tapes, or Hezbollah revolutionaries across our TV screens. Bu

The Government Home for Girls

(Author’s Note: The following account was written by me several years ago after my visit to a government home for trafficking survivors in an Asian country. I have changed the names and a couple of minor details to protect the ongoing work in this lo

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

Remembering and Interpreting Northern Slavery

The perception that American slavery existed exclusively in the South persists even after decades of scholarship detailing slavery in the North. Several factors contribute to the perpetuation of the slavery as Southern myth. To be sure, the overwhelm

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