LET’S TALK ABOUT RACE AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING
Due to the disproportionate number of children of color who are trafficked each year, human trafficking is a racial justice issue. Racism is deeply embedded and perpetuated in human trafficking. In an excerpt from a recent blog, here are the words of one survivor of child sex trafficking: “I can’t compare one victim’s experience to another’s, but I will say that race can add an additional layer of oppression… My dark-skinned friends and I were sold for less. These aren’t just ideas about the relative worth in society of perceived racial disparities – these are cold, hard numbers that taught us that white children were literally worth more than children of color.”
Read the full piece on Race and Trafficking here.
COLLABORATION WITH GRADUATE STUDENTS IN MADAGASCAR’S CAPITOL
It’s been a year since we announced our pilot project bringing Prevention to Africa, and we‘ve now reached over 13,000 children! Recently in Madagascar, graduate students at the University of Antananarivo were trained to use the “My Body is Mine” flip chart, and presented it in primary school classrooms. When the grad students returned to the classes, the children remembered all the key messages. To follow-up further on the children’s learning and retention, the grad students shared more scenarios and asked what was wrong and why. The children responded with clear understanding, saying things like, “You shouldn’t go back to that man’s house, he will steal you.” and “Safety is her right, so when she told her mom, her mom shouldn’t have dismissed her.”
Learn more about our work in Africa here!
PRECISELY WHAT YOU’VE MADE POSSIBLE: LOOK THROUGH THE LATEST IMPACT REPORT
Our latest quarterly impact report is now available on our website. We have now reached 49,314 children (we’ll have likely passed 50,000 before you read this!) and reached 13,182 adults through our training and community education globally. In the impact report, you can find out about the ages, genders, and risk factors of the children in our care — and a whole lot more.
URGENT ACTION: TELL FACEBOOK TO ADD CRITICAL PRIVACY DEFAULTS TO PROTECT CHILDREN
The children we work with tell us that predators use Facebook to contact and groom them. Facebook has a responsibility to fix this immediately. We need you to raise your voice and tell Facebook: When you invite teens to create accounts, your default privacy settings shouldn’t make them easy to prey upon! From our experience, we’re urging 3 common sense changes to default privacy settings for children. You can watch a quick video that explains these recommendations & sign the petition here.
PREVENTING TRAFFICKING IN NORTHERN CALI
Picture a group of young people, together in a room with a trained facilitator, learning about the realities of trafficking; exploring their vulnerabilities together, learning about safety planning. That’s what our Prevention curriculum, Not a Number, looks like. To reach more youth, we train facilitators from other organizations and we stay in touch to support them. Here’s some feedback we received from one Not a Number facilitator: “Our county has truly embraced the curriculum. We are providing much of our training to youth involved with foster care… I feel like there is a support network available and we aren’t just flying blind! I look forward to continuing to provide this training to our young people in rural Northern California.”
More about Not a Number here!
