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The issue continues gaining notoriety and response.
In 2011, the U.S. Justice Department initiated a record 120 cases against human traffickers and The Salvation Army’s anti-trafficking programs served 325 victims of human trafficking nationwide.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told The Washington Times this increase is part of the department’s commitment to preventing human trafficking, bringing traffickers to justice and assisting their victims. Holder said the commitment has “never been stronger—and our approach has never been more effective.”
The Salvation Army has been fighting for the abolition of trafficking since 1865 through legislative and policy initiatives, awareness raising and training, prevention efforts, and provision of trafficking survivor services.
“The success of the U.S. Department of Justice in prosecuting more human trafficking cases is very encouraging,” said Lisa Thompson, Initiative Against Sexual Trafficking liaison for The Salvation Army in the U.S. “The fact that prosecutions are up demonstrates that efforts to train law enforcement and prosecutors about human trafficking are paying off. The Salvation Army has played an important role in providing such training in various communities across the country…and had significant opportunity to respond by providing victim services.”
This year, trafficking gained notoriety with the “Kony 2012” campaign from Invisible Children, which advocates for the end of child kidnapping by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda that is led by Joseph Kony. One week into the campaign’s 30-minute film release, it was officially named themostviralvideo in history with over100 millionviews on YouTube. The aim is to “make Kony famous”—an effort to keep pressure on Ugandan government officials and United States advisors to find and arrest Kony.
“Where you live shouldn’t determine whether you live,” co-founder Jason Russell says in the video.
The filmmakers have endured as manycriticisms as they have praise, but the film has shed a bright light on the atrocities of child trafficking—an industry that exists in every corner of the world and enslaves approximately 1.2 million children each year.
To learn more or to see the film, visit salvationarmyusa.org or invisiblechildren.com.
