Purpose

In the fall of 2010, a fire was lit inside of me. When I learned from a news special, that there were women being exploited through sex trafficking, I was in disbelief. I was angry. But, more than anything, I was curious and from that day I have been unable to look away. 

Through research, networking and activism I have learned that human trafficking, or slavery, in our world today is much more than a few women in a massage parlor. Slavery touches everything we own. The clothes on our backs, the homes we live in, the makeup we put on our faces, the phones we use, the diamonds we wear, the food we eat. It's in every country, in every corner of the world. In fact, it's in our own backyard. I have learned that I have benefited from someone else's suffering. For me, that knowledge has been a huge burden to bear but, not even close to the burden that some 27 million men, women and children carry every day.

I want to be a part of the solution. I want to be a voice for those that have none. I don't know if anyone will even listen but, this blog, I hope, will be a way to channel my negative feelings into something positive. Maybe to educate others or just keep myself from spontaneous combustion from my own emotions of sadness and anger about the way humans exploit each other. We abolished slavery once. Let's do it again.

With that, I close with one of my favorite quotes from William Wilberforce, the British politician and abolitionist,
           
"You may choose to look the other way, but you can never again say that you did not know."