So I snuck on the intern login for the blog because I wanted to brag about one of our interns, Nicole.

I'm amazed every year with the quality of our Love146 interns. They are intelligent, passionate, capable and can roll with the punches (and jokes) that happen here in the office. Every one of them is a jem.

I wanted to highlight a recent project Nicole did. She was (and still is) helping us get ready for the Collective Shout Conference happening this November. She single handedly put together a promo video for the conference!

Ok, I'm admittedly not a "techy" person, it's amazing that I can work my mobile phone so after several attempts of trying to embed a video in this blog I have to give up and just give you a link (I know you're less likely going to visit a link but come on it's worth it I swear!)

Thank you so much Nicole and the rest of the amazing interns! Can't wait to see you back here in November.

Desirea

Yesterday while surfing through news articles, I came across a story linking Joren van der Sloot to sex trafficking rings in Thailand and Asia. Van der Sloot, as you may know, remains the only suspect in the disappearance of 18-year-old Natalee Holloway. With his most recent alleged murder case still pending in Peru, one can only roll their eyes at the thought of this guy still evading prosecution after being involved with two high profile cases. The level of public awareness in these cases reflects the justice that the families and citizens would like to see brought to this character. So who seeks to bring this man to justice? Who seeks justice for any woman or child who has become a victim at the hands of a merciless crime? Of course there will be someone who wants justice, but more importantly, will they receive justice? I wonder about the nameless and faceless women who may have been trafficked into slavery as a part of van der Sloot’s exploits. I wonder why the allegedly trafficked Thai women only receive a mere sentence or two in the news, while other women receive international coverage. What about the girls who do not get a high profile case with media coverage across all corners of the country? I asked myself a question: Do certain people get more justice than others? If not for the Natalee Holloway case, would the world have ever heard about van der Sloot’s murder accusation in Peru or the girls he has allegedly trafficked from Thailand to Holland while posing as a modeling agency consultant? Women and children time and time again have been denied their basic freedoms and rights. Those people who have been denied obtaining justice for all that has been done to them are being denied their freedoms by those in a higher socioeconomic class. Globally, impoverished and invisible people have been cast by the wayside, forgotten as useless growing populations that are deemed “someone else’s” responsibility. These women and girls are the invisible population in our towns, states, and countries that are victims of vast injustices but will remain unknown because their stories were never covered in the media. People become invisible by no fault of their own, but at the hands of those who turn the other cheek. They do not receive justice and bystanders wonder why these atrocities, these crimes against humanity continue. The fact that money, race, class, or education has determined their place in society does not mean they deserve justice any less than someone else. Women and children, a historically marginalized group, encompassing still suffer from the prejudices projected upon them. If more time is devoted to protecting and uplifting women all over the world, we will continue to bring justice to those who are victims of violence. Human rights violations will happen because invisible populations continue to be forgotten. In order for invisible peoples to receive justice for crimes committed against them, they need to be given a face, they need to be given a name, but most importantly, they need to be given LOVE. Women and children who have become trafficking survivors need people to genuinely take interest in their lives and in their hearts. Love makes people feel wanted and known. Love makes the invisible visible. Stories of survivors must be continued to be shared, to be made known, and to be given a voice in their struggle. As abolitionists, we must seek to show the world that despite the lack of attention shown to invisible people, that they are people who deserve justice just as much as the next person. We will refuse to allow them to remain invisible. This question strikes at the heart of what must drive us to end trafficking. It is my life’s devotion to make the invisible visible, to give a voice to those whose voice is not heard. I will continue to give justice and voices to those who have disappeared and been forgotten. I encourage you to not give up the fight until every victim and survivor of trafficking has been given the ability to bring their traffickers to justice and to know that they were not forgotten.

Abbe

Two children are sold every minute.  I saw this statistic on a banner today while working at my internship at Love146.  It wasn’t a new statistic to me but it was like I saw it with new eyes today.  I just kept going back to that sign.  Over the course of this summer I have seen an overwhelming share of horrendous statistics but that one seemed to really hit me hard today. It was the first time I looked at the sign and did the math…

UNICEF says that some estimates go as high as to say that 1.2 million children annually are trafficked. Then I thought about the Rent song “525,600 minutes” to help me figure out how many minutes there are in a year (yes, that’s the only way I can remember that number).

1,200,000 children / 525,600 minutes = 2.283 children trafficked per minute

I had never done the math before in my head; I saw the statistic and knew it was bad. But really, think about it. In the time I write this blog a few children will have been sold. They could be sold to be sex slaves, mail order brides, carpet weavers, organ harvesters, domestic servants or anything else.

Don’t close the blog and think, oh but that’s in another country. Let’s break it down statistically for the United States. According to Estes and Weiner (2002) there are approximately 100,000 children who are exploited sexually for commercial purposes annually in the United States and another up to 300,000 at risk of it. Using the conservative estimate, that means a child in the United States (who can come from any socio-economic background) will be commercially sexually exploited every 5.5 minutes. That is almost 2 in the amount of time it takes you to watch the new Lady Gaga video.

I don’t say all of this to overwhelm you, to bring you down or anything else. I say it because people have to know. When apathy grows, evil wins and I’m tired of watching that happen. Do what I did today, after years and years of seeing it, really look at the statistic, think about what that means and challenge yourself to see what you can do to help stop that.
 

- Nicole

"Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin."-Buechner

One of the many hopes my wife and I have for our children is that they will grow up to be compassionate people; and people whose compassion leads to action. My older children have seen first hand, the hurting and oppressed in different cultures throughout the world, as well as here in the U.S. They have learned that there are real human beings behind mind-numbing statistics.  Our hope is that somewhere along the way our kids learn to put themselves in the place of others. To feel. To understand.  To engage.

So I was deeply moved when my oldest daughter just recently posted the following on her blog. It is written from the perspective of the “other.” Specifically, a girl known as 146 and the thousands just like her.

Where has the beauty gone?
The fantastic?
The magic?

Buried behind me
in the home I cannot find.

Have I been forgotten

In this hole
billowing with
driven stares
catering to evil?

Paying the price,
enslaved submission,
for their temporary satisfaction.

In an effort to survive
I try to believe
that maybe you
remember me.

“When you remember me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. For as long as you remember me, I am never entirely lost.” –Frederick Buechner

I am marked…and remembering.

Rob
President, Love146
Follow me on Twitter HERE

Almost daily we have amazing stories coming into our office. Stories of abolitionists, survivors, partners etc. I received this story last week from a 14 year old abolitionist who is part of a Love146 teen Task Force. I wanted to share it with you. Thank you Soraya for sending us your story!

It's amazing how children react when they are told bad things are happening to their peers. The other day I was babysitting, and one of the kids asked me what the 146 on my walls mean. I told her that it's part of a group I'm in that stops bad things from happening to kids her age.

"Why don't you just put all the bad people in jail?"
A lot of them are in jail, but there's more that aren't.

And soon enough I was being interegated by a seven year old, a seven year old who seemed astonished by the fact that she lives a happy life, while others her age are not.

"So the kids my age, don't go out to play? Or have mommies to tell them bedtime stories?"
No, the bad people don't allow for that.

Then a tear started to roll down her face, one single tear, that tear made me realize that no matter what age you could still care. "Thank you" was the only thing she uttured.

It puts me in awe when I see how attatched kids can be to others, that they haven't met. How they are soon enough ready to stop anything that is not keeping the happy world they know. How one child can become so emotionally attatched and not even know the details. That one little girl's sad, innocent eyes gives you more of a reason to want to stop the pain. Then I told her of a place, a wonderful place where the kids get to play and so many nice people can tell them bedtime stories. I was talking about the Round Home. Also how some kids will find their mommie, and crying, but their tears will then be of happiness. And to think in that ten minute conversation already twenty children were sold, but in the time I sleep, the time I dream, nearly 1000 kids are sold. Its all of this that keeps the passion for helping still burning.