MISSION FOCUS:

Approximately 800,000 to 900,000 victims annually are trafficked across international borders worldwide; between 18,000 and 20,000 of those victims are trafficked into the United States. The majority of those victims are women and girls. This is not a problem that solely occurs “over there,” but reports of sex trafficking are being increasingly received from even rural areas here in the United States. Big events such as the SuperBowl, Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, even political conventions see a rise in sex trafficking in the area where they’re held. Truck routes are corridors. Women living in poverty and teenage runaways are particularly vulnerable. The more we educate ourselves on this issue, the more we can take a stand for abolition.

Human Trafficking National Hotline: 1-888-373-7888 (TTY: 711)
Text: 233733
Website (with online chat): https://humantraffickinghotline.org/get-help
 
For Your Study

• Sex trafficking is part of the larger issue of human trafficking, or forced labor. Watch this animated explainer video to help you understand how forced labor works: https://youtu.be/sOHq0MlN3PY. Note that the video was produced in 2014 and gives a statistic of 21 million in forced labor worldwide. In 2017 that number was revised to 24.9 million. There is also a statistic of 40 million which is also a 2017 number, but this number includes forced marriage, which can be included as “modern slavery” but is not in the definition of “human trafficking” unless the forced marriage becomes domestic servitude. 
• As another educational piece on forced labor, view this video on Mica mining: https://youtu.be/PxjZXdwscpA.
• Be the Change: Your Guide to Freeing Slaves and Changing the World, by Zach Hunter (Zondervan, reprint 2011). This book is particularly good for AB GIRLS/girls' groups as the book was written by a teenage abolitionist and activist, spending much of his time working to end modern-day slavery and fighting other problems in the world today. When he was twelve, he started a campaign called Loose Change to Loosen Change, helping to raise awareness and money to free people from slavery. 
• Start Here: Doing Hard Things Right Where You Are, by Alex & Brett Harris with Elisa Stanford (Multnomah Books, 2010). This isn't a book about human trafficking but, rather, about activism and engagement. It has inspired thousands of young people around the world to make the most of their teen years. The brothers are twins and wrote the book when they were 17 years old. One was a speaker at the 2012 National Gathering for Youth, sponsored by American Baptist Home Mission Societies, in Washington, D.C. This is recommended for AB GIRLS/girls' groups or youth groups.
• The Road of Lost Innocence: The True Story of a Cambodian Heroine, by Somaly Mam with Rugh Marshall (Spiegel & Grau, 2005)
• Made in the USA: The Sex Trafficking of America's Children, by Alisa Jordheim (HigherLife Publishing and Marketing, 2014)
• A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery, by E. Benjamin Skinner (Free Press, 2009)
• God in a Brothel: An Undercover Journey into Sex Trafficking and Rescue, by Daniel Walker (InterVarsity Press, 2011)
• Sold, by Patricia McCormick (Hyperion Paperbacks, 2008)
• The Natashas: The Horrific Inside Story of Slavery, Rape, and Murder in the Global Sex Trade, by Victor Malarek (Arcade Publishing, 2011).
• Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade—and How We Can Fight It, by David Batstone (HarperOne, 2010)
• In Our Backyard: A Christian Perspective on Human Trafficking in the United States, by Nita Belles (Xulon Press, 2011). Also: In Our Backyard: Human Trafficking in America and What We Can Do to Stop It, by Nita Belles (Baker Books, 2015).
• Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn (Vintage, reprint edition 2014)
• In Contempt of Fate, by Beatrice Fernando (BeaRo Publishing, 2004). This book is about labor trafficking.

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AB Women’s Ministries Involvement

• We have been directly engaged in raising awareness, advocating for increased legislation, and encouraging women to develop outreach and ministries in their communities around the abolition of modern-day slavery. Our Break the Chains project from 2007-2010 was focused on sex trafficking and resulted in grants of over $480,000 to ministries in the U.S., Puerto Rico, and internationally that address the prevention of sex trafficking, advocacy for victims and better legislations, and victim care and services.
• Our Women and Girls Mission Fund has funded projects related to trafficking, such as providing funding through the Restavek Freedom Foundation in Haiti to assist children in child slavery and trafficking victims.
• Through Break the Chains and our Women and Girls Mission Fund, we have funded several scholarships for women from the United States and other countries to attend the International Christian Alliance on Prostitution (ICAP) Global Conference in Green Lake, Wisconsin, in 2010 and 2014, that they may receive training and support in their abolition work.

Taking Action

• Visit the website of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation for excellent information. http://endsexualexploitation.org/.
• Read the monograph available through the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America (BPFNA) on Human Trafficking, available here.
• Participate in the Cities for CEDAW advocacy movement. The United States is one of only seven countries in the world that has not ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1979. CEDAW is a landmark international agreement that affirms principles of fundamental human rights and equality for women around the world. In addition to eliminating discrimination against women in every sphere, it also addresses sex trafficking and domestic abuse. Tired of waiting for the United States to ratify CEDAW, the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles passed ordinances in 1998 integrating CEDAW into city and county governance. Since then, similar initiatives have been enacted in other U.S. cities. Creating a groundswell of local, municipal support for this global human rights initiative will not only improve the lives of women in the U.S. but will significantly increase the possibilities of the U.S. ratifying CEDAW. To read a PDF document describing this intiative more fully, click here.
• Type “sex trafficking [name of your area]” into your Internet search engine to find news stories, statistics, or programs addressing this issue near you.
• Visit www.acf.hhs.gov/trafficking for information and “tool kits” that are available for free.
• Explore the website of the Half the Sky Movement, based on the ground-breaking book by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn (see “For Your Study” above). Watch the documentary, play the Facebook game, gather women to study these issues with you.
• Visit the website of All Hands In, a ministry launched by a group of American Baptist women who had been inspired by their own work with the AB Women’s Ministries national mission project “Break the Chains.” Get a feel for what they’re involved with from reading their website.