Slavery in 2016

Slavery in 2016

By Maclyn Crnkovich Posted April 27, 2016

It has been nearly 150 years since Abraham Lincoln declared all slaves fighting for freedom, “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free”. Fast forward to 2016, it seems as if slavery is a thing of the past. If you think this, you are dead wrong. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, human trafficking, whether it is for sex or labor, is the second largest globalized crime. Between 800,000 and 4 million men, women, and children are taken from their homes and sold into slavery around the world each year. Sexual exploitation and forced labor are the most common forms of human trafficking. In addition, 20% of these cases involve forced labor, while the other 80% involve sex trafficking.

In the United States, this is a huge problem. California, Nevada, Texas, and New York are the states that are mostly affected by this issue.

Even though this seems like an issue that is too large to stop, many organizations have been created to help victims of human trafficking and stop it altogether. In Reno, an organization called Awaken helps victims of commercial sex exploitation, and informs people about how we can stop these tragedies. Since January 2014, Awaken has worked with more than 830 students in the Reno area including Damonte Ranch High School and University of Nevada, Reno according to awakenreno.org.

“My mission is to help people in this type of need started when I was in graduate school and UNR,” said Melissa Holland, a founder of Awaken.

“I started researching on this topic and realized it is a huge issue that doesn’t get much attention. Things just started to snowball from there, and eventually Awaken became an organization to help and inform people about sex trafficking,” explained Holland.

Awaken focuses on three main points; prevention, restoration, and city transformation. They provide counseling, mentorship, case management, job training, and even financial aid to victims of trafficking. This organization is looking to spread to more communities in hopes that they can help more people.