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Home>Latest News

September 22, 2014 by Guest

Ending Demand Starts with Building Strong Children

While enslaved on a plantation on the eastern shore of Maryland, my great-great-great grandfather, Frederick Douglass, was denied an education. Slaves were prohibited by U.S. law to learn to read and write. Slave owners understood that education was incompatible with slavery. They believed that an ignorant slave was a content slave…and the federal government ensured that those held in physical bondage would also be held in mental bondage.

There is a paradigm that, even after the legal demise of slavery brought on by the Emancipation Proclamation and Thirteenth Amendment, has remained unchanged. Douglass identified the key to ending this human scourge when he realized at the tender age of nine that, “Education makes a man unfit to be a slave.” My great ancestor understood that knowledge was power and it would one day be his key to freedom.

I’ve long considered my connection to Douglass as well as that to my great-great grandfather, Booker T. Washington, to be a rare blessing. It wasn’t, however, until I discovered the extent to which slavery still affects people in the world today, including here in the U.S., that I realized these great legacies were also part of a calling for me – a calling to leverage history in order to help change the future for those captured in modern-day slavery. Unless we’re able to educate young people about slavery’s past and present; about the methods traffickers use to entrap and exploit, it will continue unabated. This is the mission of the organization I lead, Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives (FDFI).

Human trafficking is slavery.  It occurs when one or more individuals are controlled and used by others. Trafficking victims often include children who have been coerced or deceived into the commercial sex trade. Sex trafficking is a profitable crime: where guns and drugs are sold only once, a child can be sold many times (even in one day) and can be sold day after day, week after week and year after year. Unlike the legalized slavery my ancestors endured, the slavery that exists today is illegal. The criminals are not just those who sell children for sex but also those who buy them.

Demand has been recognized as a critical component of the sex trafficking crime. Most of us recognize “supply and demand” as basic elements of an economic formula. In the same way that the demand for cheap and free labor in the Southern United States drove the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, sex trafficking today is driven by demand. Sex traffickers meet this demand by supplying mostly women and girls to buyers wishing to purchase them for sex.

Our culture is, in many ways, complicit in creating demand for commercial sex. One way is by normalizing prostitution. Media representations of prostituted individuals, various forms of sexual exploitation and Pimp Culture are reaching boys on computer screens and cellphones at younger and younger ages. While some of their female counterparts are being lured into commercial sex, huge numbers of boys are systematically being groomed by pornographers to become future buyers of sex in person and on video. As pornography proliferates on the Internet, the financial stakes and the risk to children increase exponentially. Right now, pornographers have the upper hand.

“It’s easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”

 Frederick Douglass

Current efforts to address demand have focused almost exclusively on adult males who purchase sex.  Federal and local legislation has been introduced and bills have been passed to strengthen anti-demand enforcement. Community awareness campaigns have been promoted to help men understand that Real Men Don’t Buy Sex.

These are all important and necessary steps to take. If, however, the strategy for stopping demand is to repair broken men, it will ultimately fail. A concerted effort must be made to build strong children. Prevention education needs to become a priority in the fight against sex trafficking and demand. We often use the image of the 2010 gulf oil spill as an analogy for the unchecked destruction being caused by sex trafficking in our communities. Proactively educating children is the logical solution to capping the broken well of this particular disaster.

“Young people play critical roles on both sides of the Contemporary Slavery spectrum: at one end, they are the most vulnerable to becoming its victims and, at the other, the most qualified to lead its demise.”

Robert Benz,

Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives

Educating young people about the crime of sex trafficking is an important first step if we want to eradicate sex trafficking from communities. Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington understood first-hand that the application of knowledge and the empowerment of an individual provided the best opportunity for one to remain free from bondage. With this philosophy as our foundation, FDFI created a human trafficking prevention curriculum for secondary schools called, History, Human Rights and the Power of One. It is designed to help keep children from becoming victims of various forms of slavery and to empower them to act against human trafficking in their communities.

Prevention education provides girls and young women with tools to understand how sexual exploitation happens, how to avoid it and what to do when it happens to them.  It also helps them identify the elements within language, media and popular culture that conspire to obscure or even glamorize behavior that may be detrimental or dangerous. Prevention education provides boys and young men with tools to understand how sexual exploitation happens and what to do if they see it happening around them. And, most importantly, education teaches them how to avoid playing a role in driving demand. It helps them recognize and interpret elements within cultural traditions, the Internet, media trends and pornography that may place their health, integrity and women and girls at risk.

In April 2013, I visited a youth detention facility outside of Washington, D.C. It is a secure, lockdown facility for about 150 boys who have been adjudicated as delinquent and committed to the district’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services. While chatting with the young men, I noticed a kid in the front row who looked to be about 16 years old.  He had a teardrop tattoo under his right eye which drew my attention to his steely glare and hardened demeanor. I could see in his eyes all of the suffering he had endured as a child and all of the suffering he had likely inflicted on himself and others.

My conversation with the boys covered many subjects that day including violence against women and girls. A few of them emotionally recounted the violence they had witnessed against women in their own lives. Some of the boys confided in me that they were there because they had abused girls.  I asked them to stop and think about how they would feel or react if someone were to mistreat or abuse their sister, mother or daughter. The young man with the tattoo didn’t say a word and continued to stare.

I proceeded to share stories about the courageous men and women in history who gave their lives for the freedom these young men had thrown away. We talked about Frederick Douglass and the importance of freeing one’s mind from mental bondage. We talked about Booker T. Washington and how he started a school to educate formerly enslaved Americans. As our time together came to a close, I concluded by telling them that they descend from greatness and each of them has the blood of heroes and sheroes flowing through their veins, just like I do.

The young man in the front row with the steely glare had been silent until this moment.  He looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Mr. Morris, I have a baby boy. When I get out of here one day, I’m not going to raise him how I was raised. I’m going to teach him to always treat women with respect and dignity.” The teardrop tattoo on his cheek was now obscured by real tears.

I couldn’t help but think how this young man’s life may have taken a different turn had he been educated and empowered when it mattered most.

 

September 15, 2014 by Guest

Neglecting Demand Fuels Human Trafficking

There are many forms of human trafficking and for the past two years, Human Trafficking Search has been writing a weekly blog on the topics of sex trafficking, child trafficking, organ trafficking and forced labor yet sex trafficking remains the most common form of human trafficking in the world. The HTS blog has covered both international and domestic trafficking on all continents, but whether local or abroad, the underlying cause of all types of human trafficking stems from demand. Much like any other product or service in the free market, human trafficking follows the standard economic principal of supply and demand. When buyers demand young women and girls for sexual services, the market eagerly complies and traffickers sell their “supply” for a large profit. The men and women responsible for the perpetuation of commercial sexual exploitation must face consequences for their actions in this not so free market. This is why Human Trafficking Search encourages and supports the creation of the Shared Hope Demanding Justice website. Only when the men and women who perpetuate the commercial sexual exploitation of human beings are held accountable and feel consequences for their actions will the demand for sex trafficking stop.

Accountability

For demand to decrease, the buyers of sex must be held accountable. Many buyers lead doubles lives as respectable family and businessmen and women—some are even considered pillars of their community. With the Shared Hope Demanding Justice website, these buyers will be exposed and held accountable for their actions. The shame and embarrassment the victims of commercial sexual exploitation feel needs to be transferred to the real problem—the buyer. As current legislations stands today there are very few legal repercussions for buyers of sex, but that doesn’t mean the buyer should escape all consequences. The Shared Hope website will hold buyers accountable for their actions and use social repercussions as a form of deterrence.

Social Consequences

The Demanding Justice website will expose buyers to the pain, social disconnect and humiliation that victims of commercial sexual exploitation feel each time they are sold. By showing the convicted buyer’s mug shots on the Internet, the buyers will be forced to face their peers both professionally and personally and accept what they have done. The buyers face will be on the Internet just like the faces of the women and girls who are sold online everyday. If the anti-trafficking community is serious about ending demand and the legal community won’t step up and evoke stricter laws against buyers then the best way to end demand is through social consequences to the buyers. Negatively affecting the buyers lives through public exposure will help end demand, as potential new buyers will be deterred by the threat of their mug shot posted online.

Even though sex trafficking is fueled by demand, it is one of the least researched, funded or publicized topics in the anti-trafficking community. There will always be a demand for sex trafficking unless there is public dialogue and agreement that purchasing another human being for sex is wrong and never consensual. The Shared Hope Demanding Justice website is just the catalyst the anti-trafficking community needs to change conversation from the supply side of sex trafficking to the demand side.

September 15, 2014 by SHI Staff

ArtPrize Exhibit Uses Real Suvivor Voices to Bring Awareness to Sex Trafficking

“Tethered”

Working with Shared Hope International, artist Pamela Alderman created an ArtPrize exhibit to bring greater awareness to the problem of sex trafficking. Using audio files from Chosen (one of Shared Hope’s documentary video resources), Pamela was able to add real voices from survivors and law enforcement to the exhibit.

“The Scarlet Cord reveals the deception that enslaves innocent children. As visitors step inside a 40-foot storage container filled with thirty doors, they enter a secret world. This dark world crosses religious and social economic borders to sell our children for sex. A twisting scarlet cord depicts the trauma bond that connects the children to their traffickers. The weathered doors represent these abused children whose youthful minds have become knotted. My art—dedicated to these suffering children tethered within the sex industry—calls for compassionate action.”

Set against the backdrop of “The Scarlet Cord” ArtPrize installation, the collaborative music video featured below from artist Pamela Alderman and singer Kelsey Rottiers aims to confront the harsh reality of child sex trafficking and to call for compassionate action.

Midnight Wars & The Scarlet Cord from Pamela Alderman on Vimeo.

 

[one-half-first]
Some important facts the exhibit aims to confront:

  • There are 100,000 teens trafficked in the USA between the ages of nine and nineteen (FBI)
  • The average age at which a child is first exploited through prostitution is 12 to 14 (FBI)
  • Cybersex sells children as young as six weeks old for sex to customers in the USA (Women at Risk International)
  • Children are sold by their families for drug money and rent in West Michigan (Manasseh Project)

ArtPrize is the world’s largest open art competition and this year’s 19-day event expects to draw over 400,000 visitors. ArtPrize runs September 24 – October 12 at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Learn more about Pamela on Facebook, Twitter and on her website.

[/one-half-first][one-half]

ArtPrize 2014 THE SCARLET CORD http://t.co/ordfPMl3ym @WomenAtRiskIntl #TheScarletCord #ArtPrize2014 #SexTrafficking pic.twitter.com/uLCbzequCU

— Pamela Alderman (@Pamela_Alderman) September 13, 2014

[/one-half]

September 12, 2014 by SHI Staff

Ajay’s Story of Hope

16th Anniversity Dinner headshot 1I am Ajay Pun Magar, and I’m 17. I’ve been living at Asha Nepal 11 years.

When I was young, my mother was taken from Nepal and sold into the brothel in India. From that time on, I lived with my uncle and aunty in Nepal. Those times were very hard for me. I was not sent to school; instead I was sent to work in the fields, to graze cows and goats. My mother did not forget me, though, and after a few years she arranged for me to come to India. I was sent to India and stayed with her for some years. I was still very young and unaware of the life my mother was suffering. Though I stayed with my mom, I was not given proper love and care. She seemed busy with her work all the time, unable to give me the attention I needed. I came under the influence of the bad people in the brothel, and I became a street kid, wandering here and there. Later on, I came to know about my mother’s profession, and it made me very sad.

Fortunately after a few years, my mother and I were rescued by Bombay Teen Challenge and we went to Ashagram, outside Mumbai. I was very happy to arrive there. I felt like I had a really big family. Eventually, we were able to go back to Nepal, and we were sent to live at Shared Hope Intenational’s Village of Hope Asha Nepal, where I was even happier. Aunty Bimala [the director] was very supportive, loving, and caring. Unfortunately, my mother died in 2004. I was very sad and depressed. But again, I was loved by everyone, and they helped me overcome my sorrows. I used to think I was alone — that nobody understood me, but God showed and reminded me of His promises and always lifted me up when I was down.

Now, I have completed the 10th grade and am enrolled in a high school course in Hotel Management. In the future, I want to open a fine restaurant of my own and treat people with good food and service. But my dream is also to be a football player (which Americans call soccer). I play football for renowned clubs here in Nepal — and I am good at it! — so I want to utilize my talent and share the Gospel through sports ministry.

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Other stories of hope:

Manisha
Savita
Pooja

September 12, 2014 by SHI Staff

Manisha’s Story of Hope

16th Anniversity Dinner headshot 1My name is Manisha Sunuwar. I am 20 years old. Asha Nepal has been my home since I was 7.

I knew nothing about myself — I didn’t know where I came from, who my parents were, where my home was, nothing. I learned the bitter truth from another resident at Asha Nepal, Renu. I call her “Aunty.”

Born in a small village in central Nepal, my mother grew up very poor. At 16, she fell in love with a man who offered her a job and a better life in the city. But she was betrayed and sold in India. She soon got pregnant with me, but she did not want a baby: a boy was destined to be a criminal, a girl a sex slave like her. She wanted to get rid of me, so she started neglecting me.

That’s when my dear Aunty Renu, also trafficked to the same brothel, began caring for me, while encouraging my mother to send me to someplace I could be saved. But both of them were helpless until the wonderful day my Aunty was rescued by Shared Hope International’s local partner organization. She urged my mother to take me, to seek shelter there, but my mother was not convinced. Instead, she sent me to a relative in Nepal while she stayed to work. I am told that I lived there for three years.

Eventually, my Aunty Renu came to Nepal and searched for me. When she found me she saw that I was miserable and was being used by these relatives as anything for money. She immediately arranged to bring me to Shared Hope International’s Village of Hope, Asha Nepal. Asha Nepal gave me the parental love and care I had never had; they gave me a family! The best part is, I know Jesus. I was living in a dark cage, but He used many people to rescue and restore me. I believe that God had a plan for me from the beginning, and He allowed these things so I could testify that He is the one true God!

I am now a second-year college student pursuing a degree in Social Work. My dream is to bring change to my country in the area of Human Trafficking. Having gone through this bitter experience, I want to restore trafficking victims trafficking back into society and see sorrowful lives transformed to joyful ones.


Other stories of hope:

Savita - Shared Hope International
Savita
Pooja
Ajay
Ajay
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