Trafficking in persons, particularly in women and children, is the modern day slave trade. It is a multibillion dollar business and the third largest criminal industry next to trafficking illegal drugs and weapons. An estimated 12.3 million people are held captive around the world at any given time - forced into sexual slavery, labor,domestic servitude, armed conflict, begging networks, or bought and sold for their body parts. Victims of this horrific market suffer repeated rapes, beatings, forced abortions, mental abuse, and isolation. They also endure physical and mental health implications, including HIV/AIDS, reproductive complications, posttraumatic stress, and severe depression. In addition to the gross human rights abuses suffered by victims, trafficking in persons fuels internal and crossborder conflicts that destabilize whole regions, encourage transnational and organized crime, and promote corruption at all levels of government. 

World Hope International (WHI) is a faithbased relief and development agency that seeks to alleviate suffering and injustice around the world. One of World Hope’s programmatic missions is to prevent trafficking in persons and to protect people who have been victims of trafficking. Since 1996, World Hope has been working in trafficking prevention activities such as economic development for women, education for the least privileged, community health initiatives, HIV/AIDS prevention, and home based care for people afflicted with AIDS. In 2003, WHI began a focused effort to address slavery and trafficking in regions where our programs intersect with particularly dire trafficking conditions.

Coalition Building

Human trafficking is a multifaceted, sensitive, and often dangerous topic. One organization can not reasonably address all the needs in any given location—corruption,transnational crime, public awareness, rescue, prosecution, and longtermaftercare that may last for years—let alone in an entire country or region. Trafficking routes span the globe. Creating networks of organizations that work on related issues is imperative to providing adequate protection and services to victims. A coalition of faithbased organizations can combine individual resources and constituent bases to create a massive information and service delivery system spanning communities, countries, and even regions. Furthermore, if faith communities are involved in antitrafficking efforts,  antitraffickinginformation can permeate the community more thoroughly and survive beyond international funding.

The Church itself, through its millions of members worldwide, has the power and capacity to substantially impact, if not eliminate entirely, trafficking and slavery around the world today, as it did during the abolition of the transAtlantic slave trade.

FAAST

WHI is a founding member of the Faith Alliance Against Slavery and Trafficking (FAAST), a group of faithbased organizations committed to eliminating slavery trafficking around the world.