It's International Women's Day!

Today, March 8, is not only Women's Day, but it is the 100th anniversary of Women's Day. Women's rights are intimately tied with the issues of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. There are so many ways the average person can call attention to these social justice issues!

I am presenting this blog in class tomorrow and I will have a letter and petition for my classmates to sign going to Congressman Jim McDermott (7th district which includes Seattle, Vashon Island, and portions of Shoreline, Lake Forest Park, Tukwila, SeaTac, and Burien). The letter details how critical it is that the United States supports policy that helps the millions of women around the world with poverty, education, and health.

Here are some other ideas to honor International Women's Day:

• "Join Me on the Bridge" Event:

The largest events are taking place on the Brookyn Bridge in New York, the Millenium Bridge in London, and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, but there are over 100 grassroots events on other bridges around the globe. You can use google street view to virtually attend any of these events.

From the video below: Women do 2/3 of the world's work and produce 1/2 of the world's food, yet only make 10% of the world's income and own 1% of the property.

Event site: https://sites.google.com/site/internationalwomensday2011/

• International women's organization CARE is celebrating Women's Day with a TwitChange auction on Ebay. Twitter lovers can bid to have a celebrity follow them or re-tweet them. Proceeds support CARE's programs to help impoverished women around the world!

Auction site: http://stores.ebay.com/twitchangeauction

CARE's site: http://www.care.org/index.asp

• Test your knowledge about women's rights history and violence against women advocacy:

Quiz site: http://www.saynotoviolence.org/quiz

• For $65 (less than $0.20 a day!) you can educate a young girl for an entire year. Research overwhelmingly tells us that education is one of the primary vehicles for lifting oppression and improving the lives of girls and women around the world (it also makes them less vulnerable to sexual exploitation and trafficking!).

To donate $65 (provides books, education, teacher training and other vitals) please go to:
http://www.savethechildren.org/c.cvKSIeO0IjJ4H/b.6231309/site/apps/ka/ec/Product.asp?ProductID=852915

Or visit the Save the Children website to find other ways to get involved:
http://www.savethechildren.org/

• Finally, VISIT THE INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY OFFICIAL WEBSITE:

http://www.internationalwomensday.com/default.asp

Cheers!

Check out the SlaveryMap

http://slaverymap.org/


This interactive map lets you search in your community to find where there have been instances of slavery and human trafficking since 2008. I found it shocking how many instances of trafficking occurred within 1/2 mile radius of Seattle University (see below)! Check out your own neighborhood - what will you find?


From the site:

Welcome to the movement to end slavery.

Slavery thrives in the shadows. An estimated 27 million live in bondage today – yet we know about the plight of so few of them. The battle to end slavery begins by revealing it.

Every captive is a person; every survivor has a story. It's time to show the world that slaves exist among us. Restaurants and fields, construction sites and brothels, suburbs and cities: all are home to victims of trafficking in the United States and abroad. Twenty-seven million slaves in the world, and we want to find them.

SlaveryMap exists to record and display instances of human trafficking across the globe. Whether you find them hidden in your hometown or covered in The New York Times, report the incidents onto this map for people everywhere to see. If you encounter a current situation of bondage, do not enter the information here. Please immediately call the US national trafficking hotline number so that the proper law enforcement and service providers can be alerted: 1-888-3737-888.

Join with your friends, your school, your community and Abolitionists throughout the world. Together, we will finally put a face to this epidemic.

Welcome to the movement.

		report		how to		about		contact	1308 REPORTS SINCE 6.1.08

©2011 Yahoo! Inc

Underage Prostitution and the Sexual Exploitation of Young Girls in Seattle: A Presentation at SU Law School

This week, February 21-25, is Diversity Week at Seattle University's Law School.

I attended a lecture this afternoon entitled "Underage Prostitution and the Sexual Exploitation of Young Girls in Seattle." I was lucky enough to experience Leslie Briner from YouthCare as the speaker (I was very impressed with her at the Town Hall meeting on child sex trafficking last month). It was to address the following: The Women’s Law Caucus and SYLAW-SU present a discussion about a largely impoverished and marginalized population and the legal responses or approaches that can be taken.

Leslie Briner shared the same video that was shown at the Town Hall meeting, called "The Making of a Girl." She believes it to be a story representative of many girls who become involved in the sex trade. The video is posted below, as well as the fact sheet provided by YouthCare.

Prostitution and Trafficking Fact Sheet

·         The average age for a youth entering prostitution in the United States in 12-13 years old

·         90% of youth who have been commercially sexually exploited (CSE) have some history of abuse, neglect, or sexual trauma

·         The issue of commercial sexual exploitation is estimated to effect 150,000 to 350,000 youth annually in the United States and up to a million worldwide (however, it should be noted that no empirical measure has been devised that can validate that statistic with accuracy)

·         A 2007 King County needs assessment identified 238 youth being commercially sexually exploited. From that study a prevalence number was determined that 300-500 youth are commercially sexually exploited in Seattle/King County each year

·         Youth are recruited from: transit areas such as bus stops and train stations, any place homeless youth congregate, group homes, shelters, youth drop-in centers, middle and high schools, malls and shopping centers, places that employ teens and, with increasing frequency, youth are recruited through the internet.

·         It is believed that 1/3 of chronic runaway/homeless youth will have some brush with survival sex or prostitution. In urban centers runaway/homeless youth who have just arrived are approached by pimps and exploiters, often within 48 hours

·         In the United States there are less than 75 dedicated beds serving CSE youth (including the new YouthCare programs). Those cities with specialized services are: Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, San Francisco, Boston, and Seattle.

·         Youth who are clearly under the age of consent (to have sex with an adult) are arrested for prostitution every day. In effect, criminalizing the youth for their own abuse and exploitation. This is referred to as the offender/victim status

·         The programs at YouthCare, in Seattle, will be the first of its kind to also serve boys and trans-gendered youth. All other existing programs are (female) gender specific