Human trafficking is a crime that largely goes unnoticed. When it’s reported, there are often news stories about sex trafficking rings in big cities, or police raids where hundreds of migrant workers are discovered being forced to work on farms. There’s not as much news about another type of human trafficking that goes on quietly everyday in regular neighborhoods, just like yours. [Read more →]

“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.“  These are the words of Steve Biko, anti-apartheid activist jailed under the so-called Terrorism Act in South Africa in 1977. For 24 days Biko was interrogated and beaten before recieving hospital treatment; he subsequently died later that year in the custody of the South African Police. [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 →]

In a blog several days ago, I highlighted how in some acute cases of mistreatment of domestic servants, diplomats are complicit in human trafficking.  Their diplomatic immunity has become diplomatic impunity.  Yet, diplomats are by no means the only enslavers of domestic servants in America. [Read more →]

In a few days, a group of non-government organizations will be meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about a serious human trafficking matter: the veritable enslavement of some domestic servants by diplomats.  On our soil. [Read more →]