A 10-Minute Pep Talk: Overcoming the Darkness of Trafficking

Melissa     Empower Women, Everyday Abolitionist, Survivor Stories     1

It’s no secret: Human trafficking can be depressing to read about. Here’s a 10-minute pep talk from journalist Nicholas Kristof, author of Half the Sky. In this TEDxWomen interview, he speaks about the resilience of the men, women, and children he’s met in his travels around the world. People assume, based on the dark topics he reports on, that he must be “profoundly depressed or highly neurotic.” But he insists that “side by side with the worst things happening in the world, you see the very best.” Everywhere he goes around the world he sees humanity and altruism—and we canRead more

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Learning How to Empower Women from Half the Sky

Melissa     Books & Resources, Empower Women     0

This year I’ll be posting quick snippets from Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Pulitzer Prize–winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. The book is a must-read if you want to learn how to empower women. (Read about why empowering women is a key to ending human trafficking.) Sometimes these post will be summaries, sometimes just bits of information to get you thinking and interested. To get the full effect, read the book. It has more ideas, information, and encouraging stories than I could fit on the blog. Introduction: The Girl Effect This section highlightsRead more

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The Latest from Nicholas Kristof

Emily     Books & Resources, Everyday Abolitionist, Survivor Stories, Trafficking News & Information     0

We at STF are big fans of Nicholas Kristof and his op-ed pieces in the NY Times. Last week he posted two excellent articles about trafficking in Cambodia. The first was about a brothel raid that he participated in with an anti-trafficking hero, Somaly Mam. At the end of that article he wrote: Ultimately, the way to end this scourge is to make it less profitable and more risky for the traffickers. Above all, that means targeting not the girls but putting traffickers and pimps in jail, whether in Cambodia or in New York. Slowly, that is happening. I canRead more

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More on Trafficking in India from Nicholas Kristof

Melissa     Survivor Stories, Trafficking News & Information     0

Nicholas Kristof wrote another article on sex trafficking in India. (Here’s last week’s, if you missed it.) This one is tougher to read, but worth it. A 10-year old girl, who’s been excelling in school with the help of an organization called New Light, is at risk of being sold by her family to traffickers very soon. This article highlights the helpless and frustrating position many antitrafficking workers find themselves in. They’re pitted against poverty and generations of cultural practices. For me, this is a time when only prayer is left. Pray for M.

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Raiding a Brothel in Sonagachi

Melissa     Partner Organization News, Survivor Stories, Trafficking News & Information     1

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author of Half the Sky, Nicholas Kristof writes about accompanying IJM officials and local law enforcement on a brothel raid in Kolkata to free young girls. This is the neighborhood where Freeset works (they make these). Impeccably well written. A startling story of hope in a dark dark place. Read it here.