Human Trafficking

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…

Michel became a mom in June 2021, when baby Nathan was born; she’s part of the Wayuu community. She lives with her dad, brother and another child that a friend asked her to care for two years ago. She’s a medical laboratory technician and holds a B.A. in Administration. Although she currently works as a Procurement Analyst, she doesn’t make enough to pay for basic needs. Michel has participated in different IRC-supported programs in the community center that is located a couple blocks away from her house. She first visited to get attention after experiencing pain while breast feeding, that’s how she joined the breast-feeding orientation program, in which she has now started to participate to share with other moms-to-be her experience. Additionally, she has joined the Wapushii program after Nathan was born, where she learns how to promote his development during the Early Childhood stage; she also has accessed…

A fight against the spread of hunger is underway across East Africa, where 32.9 million people are experiencing a complex hunger crisis driven by conflict, the economic impacts of the global pandemic, swarms of desert locusts, and extreme weather conditions. According to the United Nations, at least 5.3 million people in Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Sudan are living under “emergency” conditions, with the threat of acute malnutrition and death. In South Sudan, 105,000 are living under “catastrophic” levels of food insecurity. By air, land, and sea, World Vision teams are delivering emergency food supplies across the region—an area so vast it equates to more than half the size of the United States—in a race to feed hungry families living in some of the most dangerous and isolated places on earth. “We are marshaling resources to support vulnerable communities across East Africa to avert the catastrophic effects of hunger and loss…

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…

To combat human trafficking made possible by many elements of society, Ashoka Fellow Ioana Bauer is taking the whole enabling system apart. Romania is the epicenter of trafficking in Europe. Of all European countries, Romania has the highest number of identified labor and sex trafficking victims, nearly half of whom are minors. Globally, human trafficking is an industry worth 150 billion dollars annually and directly impact at least 40 million people who are currently living in some form of slavery. To have any serious impact on trafficking, Ioana knew that she had to change the culture in which vulnerable young people are growing up. A teen’s peers have significant influence on her life, so Ioana focused on building awareness among teens so that they can protect each other. She now has mandatory anti-trafficking courses in all high schools. She also created a program that has trained over 6,000 teachers how…

Meet Carline Like many people in rural Haiti, Carline grew up in poverty. As a child, Carline’s family struggled to care for her. When she got older, she was sent to live with another family. Although her family thought Carline would be cared for, she endured enslavement and abuse. As an adult, Carline struggled to provide for her children in her community on LaGonave Island. Her family battled hunger and homelessness. When a friend of Carline’s asked to take her seven-year-old daughter, Claudia, Carline thought it was a good thing. Carline said, “I trusted her to care for Claudia and send her to school.” Then, Claudia was sent to live with a different family, just as her mother was many years ago. Around that same time, Free the Slaves and Beyond Borders began working in Carline’s community, offering child rights training and organizing adult survivors of child slavery. This opened…