Sorry for the late-post for those who are following. The bloggers for Thursday were completely wiped after arriving at the hostel around 12am.
We had a chance to raise awareness about Human Trafficking in the community (around Dupont Circle) with Fair Fund again (as we did on Weds) in the morning. Most members found it was a much more "successful day" since we had "experience" from the day before. For instance, I took a new approach that if someone did not "have a minute to talk about modern day slavery in D.C.," then I could at least offer them a flier with not only information on the issue, but a way to contact the city councilman to endorse a bill that criminalizes trafficking people in D.C. (Maryland and Virginia have this in place, but DC does not).
We had some more time in the sun to walk around or eat our packed lunches before heading to Alexandria, Virginia to meet with Shared Hope International. While there, we had conversations with three different people about three different approaches to combating human trafficking. The first was Amy who shared with us Shared Hope's origin (congresswoman Linda Smith's exposure to "the cages" in Mumbai) and current work to rescue and restore survivors of sex-trafficking (http://www.sharedhope.org/). We learned how they do an array of things such as raise awareness, train law enforcement to identify and care for trafficking victims, research the "demand" side of sex-trafficking, as well as run (and empower survivors to take over) "villages of hope" in Jamaica, India, Nepal among others. They also support 3 partners in the U.S. that shelter and restore survivors. We had the added bonus of meeting with Jennifer from Courtney's House. Courtney's House is an organization that provides services for victims of trafficking in the D.C. area and is about to open the 6th safehouse/shelter/group home in the United States for Human Trafficking victims (definitely a shortage of these). The most unique thing about Courtney's House is it was started up by a survivor of sex-trafficking who better understands the needs of victims (not just things like therapy, but things like tattoo-removal to help women remove "brands" of their pimps' names). Finally, we heard from Max, a Shared hope intern, about the men's group "Defenders" who seek to fight the commercial sexual exploitation of women and children by taking the following pledge: "Defenders pledge to stand up and speak out, holding other men accountable for their actions. They educate and protect children from the dangers of online recruitment by predators. Defenders refrain from looking at, buying, or collecting pornography, knowing it is the gateway to child victimization in the commercial sex industry, and refuse to purchase sexual services." We also spent time talking about the ways we can combat trafficking as well as the power of language (using words in certain ways such as "prostitute," "pimp," and "whore"). That is merely scratching the surface of all we learned there.
When we got back to the hostel, the team got all "fancified" to attend a Maryland alumni reception. We shared our stories with Maryland alum as well as heard from a recent Maryland alum about her experiences with Alternative Spring Breaks. After the reception, we headed to Georgetown to get some late-night dinner from a trip member's uncle's place (Wingos).
Yet another day full of good conversations all around the issue of human trafficking and what we plan to do to expose this issue, serve the victims & survivors, and create a world where slavery is truly abolished.
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