Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Are We Making Any Progress With Human Trafficking?
Are We Making Any Progress With Human Trafficking?
Feb 11, 2026 9:25 AM

Looking at the numbers is overwhelming. 21 million people trafficked globally every year. Over $150 billion a year in profits. Is there any hope for such a tremendous problem, with so many facets that need attention?

Thankfully, the answer is “yes.” International Justice Mission (IJM) which works bat all forms of slavery around the globe, is finding success. In just one week, IJM – working with local law enforcement – was able to rescue 17 girls who were being trafficked for sex. This was the result of much hard work: talking and training with local law enforcement, finding follow-up care for survivors, and creating tougher laws regarding trafficking. This short video shows how progress is being made.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Joy for the World: Restoring the Joy of God to Cultural Witness
Over the last century, Christianity has declined in social influence across much of the Western world, leading many to believe it has little place or purpose in public life. In response, Christian reactions havevaried, with the more typical approachesbeingfortification (“hide!”), domination (“fight!”), or modation (“blend in!”).In each case, theresponse takes the shape of heavy-handed strategery or top-down mobilization, whether to or from the hills. And yet the cultural witness of the church ought to flow (or overflow) a bit differently....
Food prices: financial speculation is a red herring
The discussion is certainly on-going among the 220 opinion leaders who attended and spoke at Acton’s December 3 Rome conference In Dialogue with Laudato Si’: Can Free Markets Help Us Care for Our Common Home? The Institute’s Rome officehad hoped that the “dialogue” would continue well past the conference itself – within the Vatican, its pontifical universities and mass media – afterheated discussion erupted over what is magisterium and debatable opinion in encyclical letters. When discussing environmental issues treated by...
This Christmas, Should You Give Cash or Cows?
During the Spanish Civil War, an American farmer named Dan West served as an aid worker on the front lines. His mission was to provide relief to weary soldiers, but all he was allotted to give them was a single cup of milk. This meager ration led West to wonder if more could be done. “What if they had not a cup,” thought West, “but a cow?” The “teach a man to fish” philosophy behind that question inspired West to...
Burrito Bomb: Anti-GMO Chipotle Needs a Business Model Reality Check
Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal reported on startup Intrexon Corp.’s efforts to eradicate pests responsible for inflicting “billions of dollars a year in lost revenue and crop-protection expenses.” The pests in question are diamondback moths that wreak havoc on cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower crops, and the efforts involve genetically modifying females of the species so they die before reproducing. WSJ writer Jacob Bunge adds that a GMO potato developed by J.R. Simplot Co. that develops fewer black spots from bruising recently...
What Bernie Sanders (and High School Guidance Counselors) Get Wrong About College
I mostly blame high school guidance counselors for our current confusion about college. Don’t get me wrong, most counselors are fine, well-intentioned people. When I was a recruiter for the Marines in the mid-1990s I met dozens of them and appreciated the work they did. But as a group they tend to have a more-or-less unstated mantra: All kids should go to college. If a high school student expressed a very strong interest in the military or trade school (or...
Star Wars Discussion at Watchdog.org
Happy Star Wars day! The new Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens, opened across the US and worldwide today, and I can’t tell you anything about how well it’s doing. I’ve been avoiding Googling it because I’m a huge nerd and I don’t want to accidentally uncover any spoilers. (I haven’t seen it yet.) But I do know that the presales were over $100 million. So even if people end up hating it, it’s already done pretty well. (Not...
The Economics of Bedford Falls (Part III)
[Note: This is the finalpost in a series highlighting some of the financial aspects and broad economic lessons of Frank Capra’s holiday classic, It’s a Wonderful Life. You can find part one hereand part two here.] Economist Don Boudreaux recently outlined ten foundational lessons that should be learned in every well-taught principles of economics course. Examples of nearly all of the ten lessons can be found in Capra’s Christmas classic, but for the sake of brevity I’ll merely highlight two...
Explainer: Christmas 2015 by the Numbers
As the most widely observed cultural holiday in the world, Christmas produces many things — joy, happiness, gratitude, reverence. And numbers. Lots of peculiar, often large, numbers. Here are a few to contemplate this season: $39.50– Average amount U.S. consumers spent on real Christmas trees in 2014. $63.60– Average amount U.S. consumers spent on fake Christmas trees in 2014. 33,000,000 – Number of real Christmas trees sold in the U.S. each year. 9,500,000 – Number of fake Christmas trees sold...
The Most Important (Good) News Story of 2015
From mass shootings to terrorist attacks, political petence to racial unrest, there has been no shortage of bad news stories in 2015. Death, destruction, and divisiveness tend to dominate the news cycle, leading us to despair over the direction our world is headed. But our incessant focus on the negative can lead us to overlook or downplay the positive changes that are happening across the globe. That is especially true of the most important good news story of 2015, one...
Africans Raise Awareness (and Provide Radiators) to Aid Frozen Norwegians
“Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, firstreleased in 1984 as part of Band Aid, is definitely, as Jordan Ballor says, “worst Christmas song ever.” Last year it was recorded again (for the fourth time in thirty years!) by well-intentioned but misguided musicians who wantedto raise awareness and funds for Africa. But why don’t Africans everyraise awareness and aid for Westerners? Fortunately, one group of Africans has united to save Norwegians from dying of frostbite. By joining Radi-Aid, you too can donate...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved