Human Trafficking Prevention Month: Christian Organization Says Sex Slavery Can Happen to Anyone; Some Girls Hold …

December 29, 2014|9:47 am

National Human Trafficking Prevention Month marked in January 2015.

A Christian organization that runs a restorative shelter program in the U.S. for women recovering from domestic human trafficking has pointed out ahead of National Human Trafficking Prevention month in January that anyone can be pulled into sex trafficking its shelter has girls with master's degrees, and those that come from affluent families. The Samaritan Women organization urges churches to offer hands-on engagement and respond not with judgment, but with compassion toward victims.

The Samaritan Womenis one if the organizations that appears in the newly released documentary "In Plain Sight," which seeks to raise awareness for National Human Trafficking Prevention month in January.

Jeanne Allert, the group's founder and executive director, told The Christian Post in a phone interview that people often have misconceptions about people who fall into human trafficking, and argued that it can happen to anybody.

"We have girls in our program that have master's degrees; that came from affluent families. We tend to make these stereotypes, as if this can happen to only one type of person to somebody from a drug-addicted household, who was promiscuous. And it's really not true it's quite pervasive. Perhaps the most common denominator that we see [is that] 94 percent of women who come into our program are victims of child sexual assault. And that can happen in any home," Allert told CP.

Based in Maryland, The Samaritan Women began work in 2007 raising awareness for domestic issues on human trafficking, and spent its first three years educating people and helping them understand that the issue is a local problem.

Several anti-trafficking groups put the number of human slaves on a global scale to over 30 million, while the U.S. Department of State has estimatedthere are between 14,500-17,500 people trafficked annually in America. Allert said that it's difficult to get accurate numbers in the U.S., however, because the State Department, FBI, Department of Justice and Homeland Security all have different statistics.

Groups such as The Samaritan Women have been working hard to provide the victims restorative programs that benefit them physically, mentally, and spiritually, however.

Allert's organization focused on the mid-Atlantic area, which along with the Baltimore-Washington airport is one of the hubs for sex trafficking in the country. In 2011, the group launched its restoration home, which is a Christian long-term shelter for victims of human trafficking in the U.S.

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Human Trafficking Prevention Month: Christian Organization Says Sex Slavery Can Happen to Anyone; Some Girls Hold ...