Global Hope 365 has ambitious goals for 2021-2022, including advocacy for ending child marriage in California, introducing Human Trafficking Prevention Programs in schools starting with Orange, Los Angeles. The Inland Empire increased human trafficking perpetrator penalties, including buyers, and continuing with our Raising Awareness, Saving Lives (™) campaign through our speaking engagements and Ambassador Program.
As we close out the month of May and look to the future, I think it’s essential to take the time to acknowledge our partners. The work we do is global, ultimately impacts millions of people. For some of us, human trafficking and childhood marriage sounds like a problem you should be concerned about, but it’s something easy for you to keep in the background. It hasn’t impacted your family or someone in your community circle.
The pictures that represent this issue aren’t pretty. It’s easy to turn away. No cute puppy pictures to get you to donate. The images of victims are young girls who look just like your daughters, granddaughters, neighbors, or the children in your classroom.
No organization can agree on how many people are impacted by this crime each year. Health and Human Services report 2020 estimates between 240,00 women and children to 325,000. The Department of Homeland Security reports 57,700. People. The University of Pennsylvania's statical research puts the number at 100.000 to 300.000. The real numbers are hard to calculate due to the nature of the crime.
Like the Covid 19 death reports, more people died than in any of our wars, but it's hard for our brains to compute that kind of loss. The entire country rallied together when 3,000 people lost their lives in the September 11, 2001, New York terrorist bombing. Why are people not paying attention to our children disappearing daily from our communities in this country and globally? Not until your son or daughter, God forbid, or their classmate becomes a victim does this become urgent.
If we take a median number as our statistics, 240,000 victims a year, that is 658 families a day coming to terms with this devastating crime in the United States alone. California is the number one state on the list for Human Sex trafficking and Slavery crime.
We are so grateful for our partners in this Mission. We need an expanding group of tireless warriors, partners, organizations, fundraisers, volunteers, advocates, lawmakers, and cheerleaders to keep the conversation going. To highlight the victims' and survivor's stories, to fight for and advocate for new laws and legislation. We need to keep the devastating impact of Human Trafficking, Sexual Slavery, and Child Marriage front and center across all media platforms. We need more cooperation, support, and safety tools from the technology companies that traffickers use to gain easy access to our children.
Cooperation between legislation, law enforcement, educators, media, the medical community, and the organizations fighting this fight is essential if we continue to make headway.
This month we highlight Three Partners critical to the Fight for Ending Child Marriage and Human Trafficking Prevention.
The Rhode Island House of Representatives just unanimously passed H5387 one week after this bill passed through the Senate. It now awaits the Governor's signature! We and our allies have been passionately advocating to End Marriage Under 18, Without Exceptions in Rhode Island and other states-- H5387 was sponsored by Rep. Julie Casimiro.
Because of our partnership with Lynn’s Warriors, we were able to accomplish this win! Lynn Shaw is the Founder and Executive Director of Lynn's Warriors.
Lynn's Warriors focuses on education and training about human trafficking and sexual exploitation. The emphasis and challenges are for everyone to become a Warrior in their own homes and communities. Lynn's Warriors educates children, teens, parents, teachers, trusted adults, healthcare professionals, law enforcement, community leaders and businesses, and places of worship about the escalating impact of the Internet and safety from predators lurking online. Lynn's Warriors emphasizes that communication is vital and supplies the tools and resources to accomplish this.
Here is one of Lynn's Warrior's daily tips to keep your children safe online. Turn off "AirDrop" and "Location Services" on all of their devices, phones, laptops, tablets, computers, and lock out the criminals.
Fraidy Reiss is the founder of Unchained at Last and victim of an arranged marriage to an abusive man. It took years for her to break free, and now she helps other women and girls do the same.
Unchained, at Last, is the only organization dedicated to ending forced and child marriage in the United States through direct services and advocacy. Their Mission is to provide essential legal and social services, always for free, to help women, girls, .and others in the U.S. escape arranged/forced marriages.
At the same time, Unchained pushes for social, policy, and legal change; the organization started and now leads a growing national movement to eliminate child marriage in every U.S. state and at the federal level.
Unchained helps primarily adult women, but also girls, LGBTQ individuals, and others in the U.S., from any community, culture, or religion, who are or have been pressured, bribed, tricked, threatened, beaten, or otherwise forced into marriage — whether the person has been married for several decades and has many children or is facing an imminent or eventual arranged/forced marriage.
Unchained also helps those from the U.S. taken to another country for an arranged/forced marriage or those brought to the U.S. and forced into marriage.
In 2019 Unchained at Last became a Coalition Member and powerful ally to Global Hope’s initiative ‘ California Coalition to End Child Marriage https://cacoalitiontoendchildmarriage.org/
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) exposes the links between all forms of sexual abuse and exploitation. We are a nonprofit organization with a focus on a wide-ranging and interrelated array of topics including, but not limited to, child sexual abuse, child-on-child harmful sexual behavior, compulsive sexual behaviors, demand for sexual exploitation, illicit massage businesses, image-based sexual abuse, institutional sexual abuse, men’s violence against women, the neurological impacts of sexual trauma, the public health harms of pornography, prostitution, sex trafficking, sexual harassment and assault, sexual objectification, stripping, as well as the intersection of these issues with technology.
A core project of the organization is the Dirty Dozen. The list is a compilation of Corporations that are significant contributors to Sexual Exploitation. Please review the list of companies on the list and on the watch list to learn more. We can support this project by the way we shop and interact with these companies. Support legislation to hold them accountable for their actions or for turning a blind eye to how their companies promote pornography and sexual exploitation.
Global Hope and our Partners need your help to spread the word and grow.
At Global Hope 365, we work 365 days a year towards our Mission to empower women and girls. At Global Hope 365, local actions have a global impact. We invite you to explore opportunities to support our Mission.
If you're not already, get connected to us on Social Media @GlobalHope365. You can do your part to make a difference by participating in our ongoing Digital Letter Writing Campaigns.
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