Human Trafficking Awareness Day – Jan. 11

In acknowledgment of Human Trafficking Awareness Day, the Alliance of Leadership & Innovation for Victims of Exploitation (ALIVE), embraces victims and survivors of human trafficking. ALIVE’S founder, Melinda Metz has a saying, “It’s about saving lives.” Victims and survivors want and deserve a chance to start, or restart, their lives after exploitation. The opportunity to have healthy choices, to feel alive, free, liberated. Throughout history many courageous abolitionists have battled the business model of slavery. While this human atrocity remains in its evolved form, ALIVE’s Mission is “dedicated to ending sex trafficking in the Black community, by leveraging awareness and prevention through innovative solution-focused events.”  Our Vision, “To behold a Black Community free from sex trafficking and exploitation.”    Women and girls of color continue to be disproportionately impacted by the sex trade. Their vulnerabilities, a result of structural violence, including poverty, homelessness, lack of education and over-sexualization at an early age, make them targets for exploitation, as well as increasing the chances they will be arrested for their own victimization. According to Johan Galtung, “structural violence” is an avoidable impairment of fundamental human needs. He introduced the term in the article “Violence, Peace and Peace Research” in 1969. It […]