Mobster and human smuggler Bill Bedini was back in Albania after jumping bail in Texas. “This [is] payback to your Uncle Edmond for when I was in the United States,” he said as he beat two young women, nieces of the Albanian man who testified against him in the U.S. A human weed, Bedini kidnapped […]
human slavery
Tampa Bay hub for human trafficking
Many people know the phrase “modern day slavery” but don’t realize it’s happening in their hometowns. Florida state representative Rachel Burgin admits she was unaware of the problem’s severity until she attended a national conference in Washington, D.C. and sat next to a woman who started an international organization to stop human trafficking. “She told […]
Make slavery a household word
I was nearly speechless last week when a friend asked, “What is modern day slavery?” “Women forced into prostitution,” I blurted. “Forced farm labor!” Is what I see and read about every day invisible to the average American? Twenty-seven million people–the population of Saudi Arabia–are enslaved today. Human trafficking is so lucrative drug dealers are […]
Time to stop cannibalizing our children
The director of “Not My Life,” a documentary that takes an unflinching look at global human trafficking as a children’s issue, has an innovative plan for getting his message out. It’s not enough to show the film in theaters and on TV and maybe win a few festival awards, says Oscar-nominated filmmaker Robert Bilheimer. The […]
Slaves weave Jersey hair braids
We don’t have auction blocks in center city anymore, but people are still being enslaved in America–often in plain sight. Consider the preteen girls from Togo and Ghana, whose families were tricked into thinking they were sending their daughters to the United States for an education and never knew their children were slaves in Newark, […]
Tricked into sexual slavery
Somaly Mam was tricked into becoming a sex slave when she was a 12-year-old Cambodian orphan by a man who said he could find her parents. Instead he dumped her in a brothel. She suffered the life for ten years then escaped. Today she is the founder of the Somaly Mam Foundation and committed to […]
