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The issue of illegal brothels posing as legitimate massage parlors is tied to Polaris Project’s first moments as an organization.  Our founders, Katherine Chon and Derek Ellerman, became passionate about the issue of human trafficking after learning about one of these brothels in Rhode Island, which operated a couple blocks from their college apartments.  Over the past nine years, our organization has focused on combating all forms of human trafficking, but we’ve always maintained an expertise and understanding of this particular network. [Read more →]

Sex trafficking thrives when landlords comply, turn a blind eye, or fail to monitor how their properties are being used.  This was the central message behind the DC Stop Modern Day Slavery group’s online petition on Change.org that launched on Friday March 4, 2011.  More than 300 community members have signed the petition, calling for Jerry Schaeffer, the property owner of the four-story building at 1215 Connecticut Ave., NW, to take action by closing down a brothel disguised as a legitimate massage parlor on the fourth floor. [Read more →]

When I was at Harvard College in the 1980s there was a bit of political correctness.  I recall in my House at Harvard, a 350-student residential college, there were cheeky songs sung by students at a holiday season dinner. [Read more →]

If you talk to people who are passionate about combating human trafficking, they will likely tell you they are “abolitionists,” and that this movement is working towards eradicating modern-day slavery.  If “abolition” is our ultimate goal then I think it is important for us to define what we mean.  What will it take to get us there? [Read more →]

Jean M. Geran, Ph.D., is Senior Fellow at the Legatum Institute in London and former Director for Democracy and Human Rights on the National Security Council.

WASHINGTON AND LONDON — We just finished a trip to four cities in Japan, laying the groundwork for increased dialogue between the US, UK, Japan and other industrialized democracies on best practices to attack their human trafficking problems. These are the trafficking-demand and migration-destination developed-world democracies , or the 4 D countries. [Read more →]

FUKUI, JAPAN – South Korea ended a program of foreign trainees working in the country because of their vulnerability to gross exploitation. I heard firsthand why Japan ought to consider doing the same with its program – the vulnerability to labor abuses which can amount to human trafficking.

The foreign trainee program (“Industrial Training and Technical Internship Program”) is designed to help workers from developing countries come to Japan and gain skills to take back to their country. [Read more →]

OSAKA, JAPAN – While other anti-slavery NGOs focus largely and admirably on the developing world, we at Polaris Project focus on advanced industrial countries, which are wealthy magnets for migrants; generate demand driving human trafficking; and have high-capacity law enforcement which all too often mistake victims for being criminal, undocumented, dirty and disposable. [Read more →]

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

Sometimes, in our daily lives, there are concrete victories when a quote comes rushing with clarity to the forefront of our minds, and we’re reminded why that quote speaks to so many of us in the first place.

Last week, I was pleased to witness one of these world-changing events. [Read more →]

Last year, I spoke with Nomi Levenkron, an attorney with the Israel-based Hotline for Migrant Workers that produced a policy report on “Paper Pimps.”  The report, supported by the European Union, presents research on the scope of sex trafficking in Israel and its enabling support structure, namely the advertisers of commercial sex operations, referred to as “paper pimps” for facilitating the exploitation of victims of sex trafficking.  It asserts the importance of freedom of expression, but the need to balance it with values for protecting other fundamental human rights.

During our conversation, I realized that I have come to know many American “paper pimps” quite well in the last seven years of work in the U.S. anti-trafficking movement.  My first introduction was to one I read every day:  The Washington Post. [Read more →]