how desperate should those measures be?

[plethora__]

Nicholas Kristof has a column up today about sex slavery in Cambodia, the second of this sort within a few days, and I for one sure do appreciate his publicizing of this issue, which is (a) horrifying and (b) easy to want to avoid.

One comment in particular caught my eye:

Desperate people resort to desperate measures. I did not find ‘parents,’ ‘

Comments

[calebjduck]

This is a huge problem, and one that can only be solved by attacking it on two fronts:

First, we need to aggressively punish those who prey on sex slaves (the traffickers, the pimps, the johns, and the government officials who look the other way).

Second -- and equally important -- we need to break the cycles of poverty that so often force people into this kind of desperation. Humanitarian programs, microlending, buying Fair Trade, etc.

Human trafficking is humanity's darkest blight, but every one of us has the power to stop it, if only we put forth the effort.

http://www.ijm.org/
International Justice Mission -- amazing nonprofit with a 4-pronged approach to tackle human trafficking holistically.

http://kiva.org/
Kiva -- empowering lives and communities through microlending. Break the cycle of poverty in the third world.

http://tinystars.org/
Tiny Stars -- sponsor a secret agent to bring justice to traffickers of human beings.