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October 2, 2013 by SHI Staff

Washington Delegate Donates Shutdown Salary to Shared Hope

Less than 48 hours after the U.S. Government shutdown, Washington Representative Jamie Herrera Beutler announced her decision to donate 100 percent of her shutdown salary to Shared Hope International.

During a government shutdown, the 532 members of Congress continue to be paid, at a rate of $174,000 annually. While this costs American taxpayers approximately $10,000 an hour, 800,000 government employees have been furloughed without pay. The shutdown is expected to have major consequences on the already fragile U.S. economy. IHS Global Insight, a market research firm, expects the shutdown could cost $1.6 billion a week in lost economic output. The last federal government shutdown occurred in 1995 and lasted 21 days.

Rep. Herrera Beutler, a long-time ally in the fight against trafficking, is using this opportunity for good. Rep. Herrera Beutler serves as a member of the House of Representatives for Washington’s 3^rd District, the same district former Congresswoman and President and Founder of Shared Hope, Linda Smith, served from 1995-99.

“Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Camas, announced on Twitter that she will give 100 percent of her salary to Shared Hope International, a Vancouver-based nonprofit group that seeks to prevent sex trafficking, until Congress ‘gets the government back up and running,’ said her spokesman, Casey Bowman. – The Columbian

On July 8, 2013, Rep. Herrera Beutler, Co-chair of the Congressional Caucus of Women’s Issues joined with a host of Senators and Representatives to help sponsor the 2013 National Colloquium Report Release and Briefing in Washington, D.C. The report, produced by Shared Hope International, represented the responses from over 100 provider, survivor, government, advocacy and funding experts on emerging trends and barriers encountered in attempting to secure restorative shelter and services for juvenile sex trafficking victims and survivors.

September 20, 2013 by Guest

A Father for Freedom

Written by: Marissa Montalvo

Life is one of the most precious things in the world and it takes tremendous courage to save one. Sparsh Founder, Timothy Hirwale, shares what motivated him to rescue and raise dozens of India’s children as his own and how his organization is making an impact.

“There was a time in my dad’s life he was left alone to die on the street of Marathwada, a rural place in Maharashtra, India. An American missionary named Elizabeth Walton picked him up as a malnourished child and cared for him and gave him the name Daniel. Looking at the beautiful lifestyle of my orphan mom and dad I was inspired and thought I would love to care and love these precious children.”

Dedicated to offering that same love and care that Walton gave his father, Timothy decided to create Sparsh, an organization that offers protection and a family to children and orphans.

“For me the thought of a child being left alone without care and protection and without love makes me move in my inner spirit. You can call it a call of God or inner urge to do something for children, but from the age of 18 there was only one aim and goal or ambition and that was to serve the children.”

When he was 18-years-old, he was called “bachelor dad” because he had already taken in two 3-year-old children.

“The first time when we picked up Payal and Sunny from the red light area to Sparsh, there was this tremendous joyful satisfaction in my heart but it took 10 days for Payal to accept me as a father because she had horrific time with her father.”

His mission isn’t easy. Timothy says some of his greatest challenges are overcoming the helplessness he feels when he can’t accept more children because his home is full, caring for the education and development of so many children, and finding the time between fundraising, administration and running the home to offer individualize love and support to all 17 children. Not to mention the logistics of transporting 22 people using one small six-passenger van. Placing his challenges into perspective, he says stories like Nandini’s are worth it.

“We brought Nandini from the street. She was full of mud and carbon all over her body. When we started giving her a bath, all the black water flowed from the bathroom. Seeing that, all rest of the children screamed and ran away saying that she is very unclean. But as the days pass by, when I look back, I thank God for this little life, full of joy and smiles every day.”

Timothy says being a good father means being a good role model, building comfortable communication so children feel free and open to be themselves, finding creative and resourceful ways to provide for the family, and by taking the time to instill values in the children.

“In my opinion, a good father introduces his children to the future and does not try to keep them from world. I feel [parent should] let them see everything, have experiences of their own and when the time comes for them to make the right decision of following any religion or career, it is their own choice. I will rest assured because the values, the love I have showed to them, is genuine and you will get a genuine result. Your love and values will always guide them to be a successful human being.”

The time and energy Timothy invested in being the best father he can is paying off. He says he has seen an increase in the children’s level of trust and sense of security since coming to the home. They are sharing their feelings, hugging and showing intentional acts of kindness-actions that indicate the children are developing healthy patterns of affection and relationship skills which can be more difficult for children with traumatic backgrounds to develop.

Timothy is a man of prayer, passion and purpose. He says men must step forward with courage and boldness to fight against injustice.

“I feel God has blessed America with everything, what other nations covet. The God given freedom is being taken away by human traffickers all over. Our negligence is bringing the HIV rates high on rampage. Our negligence is seeing our own daughters and sisters being taken away in front of our eyes…Feeling sorry for the horrific act is not just enough. It is the time to act. Many think it won’t happen to me or my family, but greed and pleasure does not know any relation and color. I pray and plead, let’s make human trafficking a history.”

About Sparsh
In 2011, Shared Hope International expanded its impact in India by welcoming a new partner in Pune. Sparsh, which means “touch” is a restoration refuge providing a family environment to women on a journey of restoration after sex trafficking, their children, and children whose mothers are still enslaved in Pune’s red light district.

September 20, 2013 by SHI Staff

Q13 Fox – ‘Chosen’: Documentary Featuring Local Woman Aims to Educate Girls About Sex Trafficking

Now, Brianna is part of a documentary called ‘Chosen‘, premiering in Seattle next week. The goal is to educate young women of the red flags to look for when these men are on the hunt for their next victim.

“We’re teaching young girls and young women to see the monster and the deception behind those charming eyes and those smooth talking lies. These guys are working fast and hard and they are good,” Brianna said.

FULL STORY & VIDEO: http://q13fox.com/2013/09/20/local-teen-featured-in-sex-trafficking-documentary

September 16, 2013 by SHI Staff

Buyer Beware: Legislators Tighten Laws to Target Buyers

Rep. Judge Ted Poe and Senator John Cornyn cross-filed the End Sex Trafficking Act of 2013 on July 24, 2013. The bill has the purpose of clarifying the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) and its criminal provision, 18 USC 1591, to include actions by buyers – through the verbs “patronizes or solicits” – as offenses of sex trafficking.

Pending federal court cases in South Dakota ended with the 8^th Circuit Court of Appeals decision issued in January 2013 holding that the plain language of 18 USC 1591 includes the actions of buyers through the terms “entices” and “obtains” primarily. Nonetheless, concern remained that the federal law was not sufficiently clear in its intent to include ALL of the actors in the crime of sex trafficking, including buyers. Federal legislators intend to clarify without a doubt that the actions of buyers – demand – is part of the trafficking crime.

This amendment is the product of years of advocacy by Shared Hope and our anti-demand colleagues. Recently, Shared Hope International’s senior policy director Samantha Healy Vardaman and policy counsel Christine Raino authored a law review article published in the University of Memphis Law Review Summer 2013 publication titled Prosecuting Demand as a Crime of Human Trafficking: The Eighth Circuit Decision in United States Vs. Jungers.

The article presents “the case that buyers and attempted buyers of commercial sex acts with minors—including prostitution, pornography, and sexual performance—engage in trafficking activities essential to the crime of trafficking. The Eighth Circuit decision in the Bonestroo and Jungers cases will greatly bolster the ability of prosecutors and law enforcement to combat and deter sex trafficking of minors in America.”

Shared Hope has been undertaking the Demanding Justice Project to emphasize the need for legislation and prosecution that target buyers of sex with children. This research addresses states’ enforcement of laws analyzed under the demand component of the Protected Innocence Challenge. Phase one of the project – a national desk review of buyer cases identified and tracked through the court process – will be featured at Sharing the Hope 2013. The Pathbreaker Awards Gala will also be featured at the event. This year’s Pathbreaker Award recipients are those who have developed innovative strategies to combat demand: Vednita Carter, Assistant U.S. Attorney Cynthia Cordes, and Rep. Ted Poe.

To read Rep. Poe and Sentor Cornyn’s End Sex Trafficking Act of 2013, follow the links below.

View the House Bill.

View the Senate Bill.

September 15, 2013 by SHI Staff

Take Action: The Power of Social Media

Social Media has grown substantially in the past few years. Facebook now has over 1 billion users. Many people have over 1,000 connections on Facebook. Twitter is rapidly increasing its user base; celebrities, politicians, and even the pope himself are using Twitter to get their message out. All around the globe, Social Media is being used to connect with childhood friends, reunite adoptive children with parents, and more importantly, get your message out.

Through social media, we now have the ability to make a global impact. You have the ability to raise awareness and communicate with fellow advocates. The ultimate question, then, is how do you use social media? Have you been to the Shared Hope International Facebook page or twitter feed? Have you ever engaged with the things that we post?

This is not a guilt-trip on my part, forcing you to engage on social media. I truly believe that social media networks have the power to connect and inform. Let me share a story to illustrate that. Some time ago, the Oregon House of Representatives nearly passed a very tough bill, which would have taken a huge step backwards when it comes to fighting human trafficking. If this bill were passed, minors who are trafficked wouldn’t have been as protected as they should be. Through social media, however, a change was made. In a little over a week, we had thousands of people from all over the world fighting for this dangerous bill to be changed before it got passed. Social media got the word out. Through social media, we made a local issue a global issue.

And to my surprise at the time, all of the fighting paid off. Because so many activists took action over social media and other media outlets, I watched the miraculous happen as Senator Floyd Prozanski stood up and made a movement to take the bill back to committee so it could be re-amended, making it a felony on the first offense to purchase sex from minors. Now, this bill has been passed, and as soon as it was signed, it was a felony to purchase sex from a minor in Oregon. Through social media, activists from all over the globe made a difference. More importantly, every one of us were connected to the cause. A miraculous act was performed because of social media activism and communication.

So I want to challenge you. Take action and learn the power of engaging on social media. We, at Shared Hope, strongly believe in communication, and social media is one of our many ways of doing that on a daily basis. So, I encourage you to go engage. Comment on our posts. Reply to our tweets. Share our posts. Join the conversation. Get the word out, and make a difference in the world. Together, we can change our culture.

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/sharedhopeinternational

Twitter Page: https://twitter.com/sharedhope

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