Guest Author: Tomas Perez, Founder & CEO of The EPIK Project I’m a coffee snob. Living and working near Portland, Oregon it’s delightfully easy to become one. Sadly, many small businesses like local coffee shops are facing extinction in the face of COVID-19. Thankfully, communities across the country are acutely aware of the threat to their favorite […]
Renting Lacy Reveals Reality: A Student’s Perspective
I was assignment to read Renting Lacy for a class on human trafficking at my university. Renting Lacy was a required book for the course. Though it was a quick read, it was notably substantive. Renting Lacy is a fictional, yet reality-based story founded upon the biographies of the unfortunate lives that are involved in […]
Child Victims of Sex Trafficking Receive Mixed Messages: If We Aren’t ‘Aggressors’ Then Why are We Arrested?
In February, Kansas Judge Michael Gibbens came under fire in national news for claiming that two girls, ages 13 and 14, acted as “aggressors” in a situation of exploitation in which a 67-year-old male, Eugene Soden, paid them to have sex. While public reaction to Gibbens ruling was appropriately harsh, the reality is that his […]
I Am Jane Doe Film Premier
Opening in Theaters Friday, February 10th I Am Jane Doe chronicles the epic battle that several American mothers are waging on behalf of their middle-school daughters, victims of sex-trafficking on Backpage.com, the adult classifieds section that for years was part of the Village Voice. These mothers have stood up on behalf of thousands of other […]
Voices from the Field Part 2 – Survivor Interviews on Backpage.com
Since news broke that Backpage.com was shutting down the “adult services” section of its website, reactions have ranged from joy to concern. These reactions prompted conversations about the effectiveness of the shutdown in preventing child sex trafficking, concerns for potential detrimental effects, and questions about next steps. We have written about our perspective on the […]
