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Kashi* was only 5 years old when strangers took her from her parents and sold her into domestic servitude to a wealthy family in Mumbai. For the next ten years, she cooked and cleaned around the clock while facing disturbing physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Later, the family took 15-year-old Kashi to Kolkata and began exploiting her for sex in a massive red-light district. IJM investigators found and rescued Kashi in April 2013, but it took years for her to rebuild confidence and learn to trust again. As she began to open up, Kashi was able to go to school for the first time and—with IJM’s support—discovered her talents for leadership and public speaking. Today, she’s passionate about using her experiences to help change India, saying, “This is my identity, where I won’t have to shy my eyes from anyone. I will not have to be scared because of my...

My story is hard to tell,” says Benita Furaha, a trainer at a dressmaking training center in Rubaya, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Benita’s parents died when she was 13. Her older brother threatened to starve her or to send her out of the house if she couldn’t contribute to household expenses. One option was to find a husband. Instead, she went to work in the mines. “Every morning, I transported and sold sorghum juice to the quarry workers,” Benita recounts. “I also transported minerals from the quarry. I worked from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and I hardly earned $1 per day.” Benita was also a victim of sexual violence. In 2012, Benita met community workers from the Free the Slaves partner organization ASSODIP. They encouraged Benita to leave her situation and join the group’s dressmaking center in Rubaya. After several meetings including ASSODIP activists, Benita and her older...

ECPAT-USA’s Youth Against Child Trafficking (Y-ACT) program empowers youth to take the lead in anti-human trafficking efforts. ECPAT-USA trains students to be the foremost advocates in their communities and among their peers, educating them on the facts, misconceptions, and risks of trafficking. Students are provided the tools needed to identify the warning signs and proper resources to protect themselves and their peers. During one early morning workshop, the education team saw a student transition from avoiding the workshop altogether to becoming an active participant and advocate by the end. Prior to the class session, the Y-ACT educators positioned the chairs in a semicircle at the center of the room. At the start of the period, instead of sitting in the semicircle with the rest of their classmates, this student opted to find a seat behind a desk in the back left corner of the room. When handing out the pre-workshop...