Innocents at Risk:
Innocents at Risk is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded to fight child exploitation and human trafficking. Our mission is to educate citizens about the horrific global and local problem of human trafficking and work to prevent it. In order to increase the visibility of the severity of the issue, Innocents at Risk established partnerships with the Department of State, Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Education, Department of Homeland Security, ICE, Custom Border Patrol and the D.C. Task Force. We work with a vast number of non-government organizations and service providers.
Human Trafficking is 21st century slavery. It is happening throughout the world in every country and across the United States in every major city and small town. According to the Department of State, every year over 2,000,000 men, women and children are taken, trafficked and thrown into this cruel world of slavery. Traffickers use force, fraud or coercion to obtain their victims.
Read letters from the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Ambassador Luis CdeBaca from the 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report.
Visit and support Innocents at Risk.
Flight Attendants Are First Line of Defense Against Human Trafficking - Elizabeth Lee, Voice of America.
Flight attendants at a large U.S. airline are training other flight attendants to recognize signs of human trafficking on international and domestic flights. The flight attendant leading the program says it's possible to catch traffickers in the act, saving the lives of women and children trapped in the net For a moment in time, strangers from around the world come together as travelers.
It's also a moment when American Airlines flight attendant Sandra Fiorini can save a life. "We had an 18-year-old boy and he had a brand new day-old baby, umbilical cord everything was still there, day-old baby. He's going on a six hour flight, no wife. He has two diapers stuck in his pockets and one bottle," she describes.
Fiorini sees scenrios like that on a regular basis when she is on one of her international flights. She says after 39 years on the job, it's not difficult to recognize a suspected case of human trafficking. "Most of us are parents. When you see an instance that's not right and a red flag is raised, especially when there is children involved, you're more in tune with what's happening," she said. Fiorini had tried to report suspicious activity to the police but they never responded. Two years ago, it all changed when Fiorini met Deborah Sigmund, founder of the organization Innocents At Risk.
"It's enslavement. We're talking about modern day slavery," Sigmund said. Innocents At Risk provided Fiorini with brochures detailing the signs of human trafficking. There's also a phone number to report a suspected case. "Before you couldn't call anyone," Fiorini said. "The local authorities would not respond to you. So now when you do call this hotline number, someone does respond." Law enforcement will be waiting at the gate if a flight attendant reports something suspicious. Innocents At Risk created a video showing why it's important for law enforcement to respond. The organization says women, girls and even boys are being sold into sexual slavery...
More at Voice of America.