An Awesome Idea in Action

Did you know that . . .

According to findings reported in the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005,

  As many as 300,000 children in the United States are at risk for commercial sexual exploitation, including trafficking, at any given time?

  An estimated 600,000 to 800,000 individuals are trafficked across international borders each year and exploited through forced labor and commercial sex exploitation?

  Of all the people who are trafficked each year, an estimated 80 percent are women and children?

Linda Smith may not have known these specific numbers in the fall of 1998 when, as a U.S. Congresswoman, she was traveling on Falkland Road in Bombay, India, where one of the worst brothels in the world is located. She did know that she could not witness the “hopeless faces of desperate women and children forced into prostitution” and do nothing to help them. That’s when she decided to form Shared Hope International to give enslaved and trafficked women and children around the world a chance for a better life.

Shared Hope International is a nonprofit organization whose mission is “to rescue and restore women and children in crisis” and “to prevent and eradicate sex trafficking and slavery through education and public awareness.”

Shared Hope International uses a three-pronged strategy to help women and children:

1. Prevent. Their research and investigative work has led to the creation of the War Against Trafficking Alliance (which has held several world summits, gathering leaders from around the world), Predator Project (which has, among other things, conducted underground investigations in more than fourteen countries and increased prosecution laws in more than six countries), and Defenders USA (a campaign started on Father’s Day 2006 specifically for men who want to help).
2. Rescue. Their interventions, outreach brochures, and HIV clinics have freed and treated women and children in countries from India to the Netherlands.
3. Restore. Their Homes of Hope are not only a place of refuge for rescued women and children, but they also provide health care, education, job training, and economic development programs so women can become financially free.

Since its formation, Shared Hope International has been a leader in the worldwide movement to eradicate sexual slavery. As the organization says on its Web site, “We will not give up. We will continue going into the darkness, rescuing and restoring young women and precious children— one life at a time.” I look forward to the day when there is no longer a need for them to do so.

Here’s an Idea You Can Do for the World Today . . .

Check out www.sharedhope.org to learn more about sex trafficking and slavery and how you can help make a difference, locally, nationally, or internationally.