Sex Trafficking and Prostitution: Reducing
Harm, Promoting HealingWhat you can do
What You Can Do:Read Rachel Lloyd’s
powerful memoir,Girls Like Us, to deepen your understanding of adolescent prostitution in America.
What You Can Do: Host a screening and discussion of documentaries
such as: Not My Life, a documentary probing the hidden and often
unspoken realities of modern slavery on a global scale, www.notmylife.org (discussion guide available at http://www.incommons.org/node/6704)
What I’ve been through is not who I am, a 20 minute documentary on the human rights violations of children being commercially sexually exploited in the U.S: http://ecpatusa.org/what-we-do/helping-children-in-america/witness-video-project/
Very Young Girls, an exposé of the commercial sexual exploitation of girls under 18 in New York City: http://www.gems-girls.org/get-involved/very-young-girls
Talk to the boys and men in your life about the prostitution of girls.
Educate them about the issue and that it is an act of extreme violence, not entertainment.
To end the prostitution of girls and stop the demand, boys and men must be drivers of the solution.
What You Can Do:
Learn more about how to engage nationally from The Polaris Project: http://www.polarisproject.org/take-action
Spread the word, host an event, make a gift, and get involved in Minnesota through www.MNGirlsNotForSale.org
FREEDOM HERE & NOW: Ending Modern Slavery
What You Can Do:
Educate your church community about the issue and ask that your church become a publicly designated “safe space” for prostituted youth. Learn more from the Northside
Women’s Space of the Kwanzaa Community Church in North Minneapolis:
What You Can Do:
If you see suspicious activity, call 911 and the Human Trafficking Hotline (1-888-373-7888).
What You Can Do:
Contact your city attorney and county government for its practices and policies for girls under 18 who’ve been prostituted.
Are they treated like criminals or victims?
What You Can Do:
Support businesses which have adopted policies to help prevent human trafficking. Patronize companies in the tourism industry who have signed onto
the Tourism Child-Protection Code: http://ecpatusa.org/take-action/promote-the-code/
Think about supply chains and find out what it takes to provide for your lifestyle at: www.slaveryfootprint.org
What You Can Do:
Make the issue of human trafficking a routine part of employee training, just as employees are trained about sexual harassment. Learn more about the Global Business Coalition Against Trafficking:
http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/site/entry/bcat Adopt a zero tolerance policy within the company about engaging in or
facilitating human trafficking. Make it a part of background check process for both your board and staff.
Include a clause repudiating human trafficking in supplier contacts.
What Companies Can Do:
What Colleges Can Do: Educate students and faculty. Hold symposiums on the topic of human
trafficking. Support the writing of case studies on this topic and their use in the
classroom. Support research that attempts to quantify the problem and analyzes best
practices in prevention, prosecution and rehabilitation. Provide forums for cross-sector dialogue on community actions to combat
human trafficking in all forms. Support student groups that want to take on this issue.
FREEDOM HERE & NOW: Ending Modern Slavery