Today is Human Trafficking Awareness Day, a good day to reflect and make conscience of one of the biggest challenges in the global fight for human rights and gender equality. As documented by the U.S. State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report, the U.S. government is one of the highest ranked countries in terms of combating human trafficking, yet there are still many ways the U.S. can deepen its commitment to fighting trafficking both domestically and around the world.
Human Trafficking Awareness Day: Nonprofits Call On Obama To Do More To Fight Modern-Day Slavery
By Jessica Prois
Many are captives who are trafficked for sex, sold by their poverty-stricken parents. Others toil in sweatshops, make rubber for our tires and harvest cocoa beans for our chocolate. Globally, there are more slaves now than ever before.
A number of nonprofits are calling on the government to do something about it on Jan. 11, Human Trafficking Awareness Day -- and in the wake of President Obama declaring January National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month.
Nonprofits are asking the Obama administration to renew the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), which would provide resources for those trying to protect the 27 million people who are considered modern-day slaves engaged in forced labor and sex.
Congress allowed the TVPA to expire in 2011 after years of bipartisan support, leaving programs that fight trafficking at risk, according to a release from the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST). Nonprofits say the political inertia is stalling real progress. Continue reading
Via: Huffington Post
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