Every night in downtown Washington, DC, there’s a specific 10-block area that transforms from a typical retail and business district from upscale clubs, office buildings, hotels, and restaurants to an open-air market where the sex trafficking of women and girls occurs [Read more →]

CHICAGO – This week I was in Chicago for the launch of the End Demand Initiative (EDI), a coalition effort Polaris Project is  supporting.  Led by the indefatigable and innovative Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation (CAASE), this initiative stands to test in Illinois a model which could be a vanguard effort for the whole country. [Read more →]

Two popular strip clubs in Providence, RI

I went up to Rhode Island a few days ago to visit some family friends.  Having heard a great deal in debates in the human trafficking field on the local sex industry in Rhode Island, and taken part in them, I made a point to talk to people about the situation there.   I wanted to confirm recent reports on how bad the enabling environment for sex trafficking had become.  What I found was indeed alarming. [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 →]

If Alex Haley were alive today, he would be celebrating his 88th birthday this week. Famous author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family, Haley went back seven generations in his family to tell the story of Kunta Kinte, a young man captured in Gambia and sold as a slave in Maryland in 1767. [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 →]

Manga (Japanese comics) at a bookstore

TOKYO — I cannot help but to ask one question when examining human trafficking in a country I deeply admire, Japan: What is it about some Japanese men and kids? [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 →]

Brothel in China

The U.S. Government is funding a bizarre study ostensibly being conducted on behalf of prostituted people. It is impossible to see how it is consistent with the U.S. Government’s anti-human trafficking policies and efforts. I have to thank Lisa Thompson, who spearheads the Salvation Army’s Initiative Against Sexual Trafficking in the U.S., for calling my attention to the issue. [Read more →]