Can we end human trafficking?

Human Trafficking Awareness Day

An email from the Lutheran Immigration & Refugee Service reminds me that today, January 11, is Human Trafficking Awareness Day. Dedicated to raising awareness of and opposition to human trafficking, the day was established three years ago by the U.S. Senate. This year, President Obama has dedicated the entire month of January to trafficking prevention, though it’s not clear to me that any increase in Federal funding follows from either of these pronouncements. I guess we can appreciate the thought.
            In the opening pages of Bury the Chains, Adam Hochschild’s history of the slavery abolition movement in England (which considerably preceded that in the United States) he notes that “at the end of the eighteenth century, well over three quarters of all people alive were in bondage of one kind or another, not the captivity of striped prison uniforms, but of various forms of slavery or serfdom…close to eighty thousand chained and shackled Africans were loaded onto slave ships and transported to the New World each year.”
            “But this was the world – our world – just two centuries ago,” he comments, “and to most people then, it was unthinkable that it could ever be otherwise.” 
            Later in the book Hochschild introduces Thomas Clarkson, a 25-year-old student writing an essay on the slave trade to compete for a coveted prize at Cambridge University. He did win, and intended to ride his success into a career as a clergyman. Instead, he became obsessed with what he had learned in his research. Midway on his ride to London, Clarkson wrote, “I sat down disconsolate on the turf by the roadside and held my horse. Here a thought came into my mind, that if the contents of the Essay were true, it was time some person should see these calamities to their end.” He dedicated the rest of his life to putting an end to slavery.
            Human trafficking represents the survival of one of the most vicious forms of slavery and, as it was 200 years ago, it’s hard for many people today to believe that we can ever abolish it. But perhaps the time is coming when we can begin to “see these calamities to their end.” The groups highlighted below are working to end the sex trade and, in the meantime, are providing help and support to its victims and those who care for them. There are many other excellent organizations working in this field which I’ll try to list in future posts.

• Prostitution Research and Education does research and consulting on prostitution, pornography and trafficking. Its goal is to abolish the institution of prostitution while at the same time advocating for alternatives to trafficking and prostitution – including emotional and physical healthcare for women in prostitution. I’ve written about some of this group’s research in the past and will be following up on some of  that in the next few days.  
• Lutheran Immigration & Refugee Service The LIRS website offers a number of trafficking-related links and resources including this resource guide for social service providers from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
• U.S. Committee for Refugees & Immigrants in Washington, DC, is one of three agencies offering assistance to victims under the National Human Trafficking Victim Assistance Project. The others are Tapestri in Atlanta, and Heartland Human Care Services in Chicago. Interested service providers can contact the visit the USCRI site to determine which organization services their State.
• The Polaris Project seeks to combat trafficking through training, advocacy, and public outreach. It operates a 24-hour trafficking hotline and offers social services to victims in New Jersey and Washington, DC. The Project’s blog, The North Star offers a range of content much of it – in approach and tone — seemingly aimed at teens.

Even the business-oriented periodical Forbes weighed in on this issue a few days ago, with an interesting post by contributor Nicole Skibola. (Unfortunately, Technology, Business, and Anti-Human Trafficking Innovation was relegated to the publication’s “Corporate Social Responsibility” blog, which is probably not high priority breakfast reading for the point-one percent.)
            The article’s main focus is on efforts by companies such as Microsoft and Google to support technological responses to trafficking, in light of the fact that the sex “industry” itself is taking full advantage of those technologies. Skibola cites research by Microsoft which “described the Internet as the number one platform for buying and selling women and children for sex in the United States.”
            In her lead, Skibola writes, “Could you have possibly imagined that there are 30 million slaves in the world today, more than any other point in human history?…A 2011 CNN article estimated that there are 100,000 to 300,000 children between 11 and 14 who are vulnerable to being sold for sex by pimp-captors every year in the United States, according to government statistics.” The scale of this crime against humanity is approaching the scale of eighteenth century slavery.

(NOTES: The Forbes article also mentions a number of corporate and foundation initiatives offering grant support for technology initiatives in this area — grantseekers take note. The photo immediately above is of Justin Timberlake, participating in the DNA Foundation’s anti-trafficking campaign.)