Portfolio Archives: Books

Survivors of Slavery: Modern-Day Slave Narratives

Slavery is not a crime confined to the far reaches of history. It is an injustice that continues to entrap twenty-seven million people across the globe. Laura Murphy offers close to forty survivor narratives from Cambodia, Ghana, Lebanon, Macedonia, Mexico, Russia, Thailand, Ukraine, and the United States, detailing the horrors of a system that forces people to work without pay and against their will, under the threat of violence, with little or no means of escape. Representing a variety of circumstances in diverse contexts, these survivors are the Frederick Douglasses, Sojourner Truths, and Olaudah Equianos of our time, testifying to the widespread existence of a human rights tragedy and the urgent need to address it. Through storytelling and firsthand testimony, this anthology shapes a twenty-first-century narrative that many believe died with the end of slavery in the Americas. Organized around such issues as the need for work, the punishment of defiance, and the move toward activism, the collection isolates the causes, mechanisms, and responses to slavery that allow the phenomenon to endure. Enhancing scholarship in women’s studies, sociology, criminology, law, social work, and literary studies, the text establishes a common trajectory of vulnerability, enslavement, captivity, escape, and recovery, creating an invaluable resource for activists, scholars, legislators, and service providers.

Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man For Rent

Here is a story like no other: The unforgettable chronicle of a season spent walking the razor-sharp line between painful innocence and the allure of the abyss. David Sterry was a wide-eyed son of 1970s suburbia, but within his first week looking for off-campus housing on Sunset Boulevard he was lured into a much darker world – servicing the lonely women of Hollywood by night.

Chicken – the word is slang for a young male prostitute – revisits this year of living dangerously, in a narrative of dazzling inventiveness and searing candor. Shifting back and forth from tales of Sterry’s youth – spent in the awkward bosom of a disintegrating dysfunctional family – to his fascinating account of the Neverland of post – sixties sexual excess, Chicken teems with Felliniesque characters and set pieces worthy of Dionysus. And when the life finally overwhelms Sterry, his retreat from the profession will leave an indelible mark on readers’ minds and hearts.

Almost Home: Helping Kids Move from Homelessness to Hope

Almost Home tells the stories of six remarkable young people from across the United States and Canada as they confront life alone on the streets. Each eventually finds his or her way to Covenant House, the largest charity serving homeless and runaway youth in North America. From the son of a crack addict who fights his own descent into drug addiction to a teen mother reaching for a new life, their stories veer between devastating and inspiring as they each struggle to find a place called home.

Inviting us to get to know homeless teens as more than an accumulation of statistics and societal issues, this book gives a human face to a huge but largely invisible problem and offers practical insights into how to prevent homelessness and help homeless youth move to a hopeful future. For instance, one kid in the book goes on to become a college football player and counselor to at-risk adolescents and another becomes a state kickboxing champion. All the stories inspire us with victories of the human spirit, large and small. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of each book will help support kids who benefit from Covenant House’s shelter and outreach services.

Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Lost Innocence, Modern Day Slavery & Transformation

In 1972, Barbara Amaya was 16 years old, leading a life far from a typical teenager and why she was Nobody’s Girl. She had been sent to three detention centers, lived on the streets of, first, Washington DC and then New York City. Amaya was forced to work as a prostitute and was hooked on heroin. The ten years she spent as a victim in the world of human trafficking is just the beginning of her story.

Made in the U.S.A.: The Sex Trafficking of America’s Children

The book is a compilation of five true stories of adults (4 woman & 1 man) trafficked as children. Each story is preceded by an overview of the type of trafficking the story addresses and followed up by a statement from the survivors themselves. The purpose of the book is to provide insights on how American children are taken captive and often coerced to remain in a lifestyle of commercial sexual exploitation. All profits from the book will be distributed to nationally recognized agencies providing either preventive or restorative service for child survivors of Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking.

Runaway Girl: Escaping Life on the Streets, One Helping Hand at a Time

An astonishing story of triumph and a fierce determination to give back

Carissa Phelps was a runner. By twelve, she had run away from home, dropped out of school, and fled blindly into the arms of a brutal pimp, who made her walk the hard streets of central California. But even when she escaped him, she could not outrun the crushing inner pain of abuse, neglect, and abandonment. With little to hope for, she expected to end up in prison, or worse.

But then her life was transformed through the unexpected kindness of a teacher and a counselor. Miraculously, by the time Carissa turned thirty, she had accomplished the unimaginable, graduating from UCLA with both a law degree and an MBA. She had left the streets behind, yet her path would eventually draw her back, this time working to help homeless and at-risk youth find their own paths to a better life.

This is Carissa’s story, the tale of a girl who lost herself and survived, against all odds, through the generosity of strangers. It is an inspiring true story about finding the courage to run toward healing and summoning the strength to light the way for others.

Human Trafficking: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Criminology and Justice Studies)

The practice of one human being exploiting another in slavery-like conditions is not new. Today, it is called human trafficking. Social, political, and economic forces over the past 60 years have changed how and why this human rights abuse occurs. In order to solve this or any social problem, it is important that it is fully understood. With a range of contributing subject experts from different disciplines and professions, this text comprehensively explains human trafficking as it exists and is being addressed in the twenty-first century. Human Trafficking is essential reading for professionals working in many fields, including law enforcement, human services, and health care, and for concerned citizens interested in human rights and how to make a difference in their communities. This book is also intended for use in undergraduate and graduate interdisciplinary courses in human trafficking.

Roadmap to Redemption

Roadmap to Redemption is the first of it’s kind… a workbook for survivors of sexual trafficking written by a survivor. Rebecca Bender was lured into the life of human trafficking at the vulnerable age of 18. Now, rescued and restored, she uses the valuable lessons she learned to help bring other survivors to redemption. This nine week workbook is cupped with her personal testimony and injected with scripture. If you like Beth Moore’s biblestudies, you’ll love Rebecca Bender. She uncovers the seductive tactics traffickers use in America today and equips anyone who wants to work with exploited victims. This workbook can be used one on one, privately or in a group setting. Don’t let this faith based, holy spirit led workbook pass you by. Endorsed by some of the biggest names in the Human Trafficking arena, Roadmap to Redemption should be in the hands of every victim of trauma! OFFICIAL SITE

Stolen: The True Story of a Sex Trafficking Survivor

There is hope, even on the darkest of days

Katariina Rosenblatt was a lonely and abused young girl, yearning to be loved, wanting attention. That made her the perfect target. On an ordinary day, she met a confident young woman – someone Kat wished she could be like–who pretended to be a friend while slowly luring her into a child trafficking ring. A cycle of false friendships, threats, drugs, and violence kept her trapped.

As Kat shares her harrowing experiences, her ultimate escape, and her passionate efforts to now free other victims, you’ll see that not only is sex trafficking happening frighteningly close to home – it’s also something that can be stopped. Stolen is a warning, a celebration of survival, and a beacon of hope that will inspire you.

Katariina Rosenblatt, LLM, PhD, is living proof of the promise she heard long ago at a Billy Graham crusade that God would never forsake her. Katariina has a PhD in conflict analysis and resolution and an LLM graduate law degree in intercultural human rights, and she works closely with law enforcement agencies such as the FBI and Homeland Security to eliminate human slavery. She also founded Stolen Ones–There Is H.O.P.E. For Me, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to freeing other victims of human trafficking. For more information, visit www.StolenOnes.com. She lives in Florida.

Cecil Murphey has written or coauthored more than 130 books, including the bestselling with Don Piper and the autobiography of Franklin Graham, Rebel with a Cause. He was a collaborator on the bestseller Gifted Hands with Dr. Ben Carson. Cecil resides in Georgia.

Collaborating Against Human Trafficking: Cross-Sector Challenges and Practices

In the fight against human trafficking, cross-sector collaboration is vital—but often, systemic tensions undermine the effectiveness of these alliances. Kirsten Foot explores the most potent sources of such difficulties, offering insights and tools that leaders in every sector can use to re-think the power dynamics of partnering.

Weaving together perspectives from many sectors including business, donor foundations, mobilization and advocacy NGOs, faith communities, and survivor-activists, as well as government agencies, law enforcement, and providers of victim services, Foot assesses how differences in social location (financial well-being, race, gender, etc.) and sector-based values contribute to interpersonal, inter-organizational, and cross-sector challenges. She convincingly demonstrates that finding constructive paths through such multi-level tensions – by employing a mix of shared leadership, strategic planning, and particular practices of communication and organization – can in turn facilitate more robust and sustainable collaborative efforts. An appendix provides exercises for use in building, evaluating, and trouble-shooting multi-sector collaborations, as well as links to online tools and recommendations for additional resources.

Sex Trafficking Prevention: A Trauma-Informed Approach for Parents and Professionals

A non-sensationalized book that gives readers a trauma-informed way to think about sex trafficking. Forget what you thought you knew about domestic sex trafficking and the best ways to prevent it. The problem is larger in scope and involves more factors than most can imagine. This book lays out what makes young people vulnerable to trafficking, exploring the real root of the problem and the numerous effects of abuse; outlines steps parents and others can take to mitigate those risk factors; and describes ways to help victims find healing.

Drawing from her own experience being trafficked plus her insights gained from years of advocacy and anti-trafficking work, the author speaks directly not only of the realities of trafficking that occur in our own communities but also the solutions that we can all be a part of. She talks of everyday things we can do to intervene—not “rescue”—youth in troubled lives and homes. The book also lists hidden signs of trouble and offers parents and professionals practical tools and knowledge to intervene and make a positive difference in young people’s lives.

Savannah J. Sanders is a leading advocate in the prevention of child sex trafficking. A survivor of hardships, abuse, and trafficking, Savannah is now living a full life as a victim’s advocate, wife, and mother of four. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in social work and is working with the Sandra Day O’Connor Institute as Training Coordinator for the SAFE (Safeguarding Adolescents From Exploitation) Action Project. Sanders shares her story and speaks regularly to groups across the United States on anti-trafficking efforts and ways to support victims.

This Is Our Story

This Is Our Story follows the lives of Rosa and Mila, two young women from different countries who become victims of human trafficking when duped into domestic servitude and commercial sexual exploitation in the American Southeast. Their experiences with the underbelly of globalization here in our own backyard, and the legal battles they wage against their traffickers with their immigration attorney, Lily, are told in their own voices, and hers, in vivid and compelling detail.

Child-friendly Practices: Is it Possible? And How?

This book is for interdisciplinary professionals and decision-makers working to protect children from abuse and outlines existing evidence-based, successful, and innovative models for providing support for child-survivors of abuse in some indicative countries around the Globe. As a text designed for professionals with an understanding of the basic dynamics of child abuse, this book offers a brief introduction on the topic of child abuse, description of evidence based models for prevention and intervention of child abuse in the Criminal Justice and Clinical component to support children who have been exposed to violence and their families. Lessons learned from the implementation of evidence-based models, and future of innovation in the area of protection children from abuse are explored with an emphasis on European regional implementation efforts. An international team of widely known authors offer readers analyses of existing models and suggestions for building systems responses based on a solid foundation of effective and trauma-informed outreach to child victims. The book is an advanced text written for interdisciplinary professionals in the elds of Criminal Justice, Human and Social Services and Medical/ Public Health Treatment, Advocacy and Survivor communities, the international and local donor community, and local, national, regional and global policy makers.

Blood and Earth: Modern Slavery, Ecocide, and the Secret to Saving the World

For readers of such crusading works of nonfiction as Katherine Boo’s Beyond the Beautiful Forevers and Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains comes a powerful and captivating examination of two entwined global crises: environmental destruction and human trafficking – and an inspiring, bold plan for how we can solve them.

A leading expert on modern-day slavery, Kevin Bales has traveled to some of the world’s most dangerous places documenting and battling human trafficking. In the course of his reporting, Bales began to notice a pattern emerging: Where slavery existed, so did massive, unchecked environmental destruction. But why?

Bales set off to find the answer in a fascinating and moving journey that took him into the lives of modern-day slaves and along a supply chain that leads directly to the cellphones in our pockets. What he discovered is that even as it destroys individuals, families, and communities, new forms of slavery that proliferate in the world’s lawless zones also pose a grave threat to the environment. Simply put, modern-day slavery is destroying the planet.

The product of seven years of travel and research, Blood and Earth brings us dramatic stories from the world’s most beautiful and tragic places, the environmental and human-rights hotspots where this crisis is concentrated. But it also tells the stories of some of the most common products we all consume – from computers to shrimp to jewelry – whose origins are found in these same places.

Blood and Earth calls on us to recognize the grievous harm we have done to one another, put an end to it, and recommit to repairing the world. This is a clear-eyed and inspiring book that suggests how we can begin the work of healing humanity and the planet we share.

Bonded Labor: Tackling the System of Slavery in South Asia

In Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery, Siddharth Kara conducted one of the most comprehensive, systematic accounts of the global sex-trafficking industry. His book became a widely consulted resource not only for its uncommon revelations into an unconscionable business but also for its detailed analysis of the trade’s immense economic benefits and corresponding human costs. Sex Trafficking has become an invaluable resource for policy makers, women’s and human rights activists, NGO workers, and specialists in dozens of related fields, as well as for university scholars and everyday citizens.

Bonded Labor: Tackling the System of Slavery in South Asia is Kara’s second explosive study of slavery, this time focusing on the pervasive, deeply entrenched, and wholly unjust system of bonded labor. From his eleven years of research in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, Kara delves into this ancient and ever-evolving mode of slavery, which ensnares roughly six out of every ten slaves in the world and generates profits that exceeded $17.6 billion in 2011. In addition to providing a thorough economic, historical, and legal overview of bonded labor, Kara travels to the far reaches of South Asia, from cyclone-wracked southwestern Bangladesh to the Thar desert on the India-Pakistan border, to uncover the brutish realities of bonded labor in such industries as hand-woven-carpet making, tea and rice farming, construction, brick manufacture, and frozen-shrimp production. He describes the violent enslavement of millions of impoverished women, children, and men who toil in the production of numerous products at minimal cost to the global market. He also follows supply chains directly to Western consumers, vividly connecting regional bonded labor practices to the appetites of the world. Kara’s pioneering analysis encompasses human trafficking, child labor, and global security, and he concludes with ten specific initiatives to eliminate the system of bonded labor from South Asia once and for all.

If Only I Could Sleep: A Survivor’s Memoir

An astonishing journey of survival and courage told in the face of unthinkable odds. The heaviness of hurt. The lightness of humor. And, finally, a reason for hope and an opportunity to serve humanity.

Stephanie Henry’s childhood took an unexpected turn when her granduncle molested her. The soul-crushing experience was but the first in a series of sexual abuse perpetrated by family members and strangers that wrecked her self-esteem and left her feeling isolated, guilt-ridden, and confused. Out of necessity, Stephanie became an instant expert at survival and a student of spiritual endurance.

Desperate to regain some sense of control, she began an emotionally shattering struggle with bulimia and the curse of having ”the look” men desire. After slipping through the education system, multiple suicide attempts, years of working as a stripper, losing custody of her daughter, battling drugs and alcohol, and enduring a string of ill-fated marriages, Stephanie put her life on course by reaching out to others and fighting for voiceless victims of exploitation around the world.

A testament to resilience and preservation, If Only I Could Sleep is a heartbreaking and riveting story of self-discovery, sacrifice, and overcoming the challenges that can make life seem unbearable.

Walking Prey: How America’s Youth Are Vulnerable to Sex Slavery

Today, two cultural forces are converging to make America’s youth easy targets for sex traffickers. Younger and younger girls are engaging in adult sexual attitudes and practices, and the pressure to conform means thousands have little self-worth and are vulnerable to exploitation. At the same time, thanks to social media, texting, and chatting services, predators are able to ferret out their victims more easily than ever before.

In Walking Prey, advocate and former victim Holly Austin Smith shows how middle class suburban communities are fast becoming the new epicenter of sex trafficking in America. Smith speaks from experience: Without consistent positive guidance or engagement, Holly was ripe for exploitation at age fourteen. A chance encounter with an older man led her to run away from home, and she soon found herself on the streets of Atlantic City. Her experience led her, two decades later, to become one of the foremost advocates for trafficking victims. Smith argues that these young women should be treated as victims by law enforcement, but that too often the criminal justice system lacks the resources and training to prevent the vicious cycle of prostitution. This is a clarion call to take a sharp look at one of the most striking human rights abuses, and one that is going on in our own backyard.

Terrify No More: Young Girls Held Captive and the Daring Undercover Operation to Win Their Freedom

Out of shocking depravity emerges a story of hope.

In a small village outside Phnom Penh, children as young as five are bought and sold as sex slaves. Day after day their abuse continues, and their hope slips away.

In Terrify No More an international team of investigators goes undercover to infiltrate this ring of brothels and gather evidence needed to free these girls. Meanwhile, skilled legal minds race the clock, working at the highest levels of U.S. and foreign governments to bring the perpetrators to justice. Headed up by former U.N. war-crimes investigator, Gary Haugen, the team perseveres against impossible obstacles—police corruption, death threats, and mission-thwarting tip-off – in a mission focused on bringing freedom to the victims.

Trafficking and Global Crime Control

In a world where global flows of people and commodities are on the increase, crimes related to illegal trafficking are creating new concerns for society. This, in turn, has brought about new and contentious forms of regulation, surveillance and control. There is a pressing need to consider both the problem itself, and the impact of international policy responses.

This authoritative work examines key issues and debates on human trafficking, drawing on theoretical, historical and comparative material to inform the discussion of major trends. Consolidating current work on human trade debates, the text brings together key criminological and sociological literature on migration studies, gender, globalization, human rights, security, victimology, policing and control to provide the most complete overview available on the subject.

Suitable for students, academics and scholars in criminology, criminal justice, sociology and international relations, this book sheds unique light on this highly topical and complex subject.

Girls Like Us: Fighting for a World Where Girls Are Not for Sale: A Memoir

“Powerfully raw, deeply moving, and utterly authentic. Rachel Lloyd has turned a personal atrocity into triumph and is nothing less than a true hero. . . . Never again will you look at young girls on the street as one of ‘those’ women – you will only see little girls that are girls just like us.” – Demi Moore, actress and activist.

With the power and verity of First They Killed My Father and A Long Way Gone, Rachel Lloyd’s riveting survivor story is the true tale of her hard-won escape from the commercial sex industry and her bold founding of GEMS, New York City’s Girls Education and Mentoring Service, to help countless other young girls escape “the life.” Lloyd’s unflinchingly honest memoir is a powerful and unforgettable story of inhuman abuse, enduring hope, and the promise of redemption.

A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery

To be a moral witness is perhaps the highest calling of journalism, and in this unforgettable, highly readable account of contemporary slavery, author Benjamin Skinner travels around the globe to personally tell stories that need to be told – and heard.

As Samantha Power and Philip Gourevitch did for genocide, Skinner has now done for modern-day slavery. With years of reporting in such places as Haiti, Sudan, India, Eastern Europe, The Netherlands, and, yes, even suburban America, he has produced a vivid testament and moving reportage on one of the great evils of our time.

There are more slaves in the world today than at any time in history. After spending four years visiting a dozen countries where slavery flourishes, Skinner tells the story, in gripping narrative style, of individuals who live in slavery, those who have escaped from bondage, those who own or traffic in slaves, and the mixed political motives of those who seek to combat the crime.

Skinner infiltrates trafficking networks and slave sales on five continents, exposing a modern flesh trade never before portrayed in such proximity. From mega-harems in Dubai to illicit brothels in Bucharest, from slave quarries in India to child markets in Haiti, he explores the underside of a world we scarcely recognize as our own and lays bare a parallel universe where human beings are bought, sold, used, and discarded. He travels from the White House to war zones and immerses us in the political and flesh-and-blood battles on the front lines of the unheralded new abolitionist movement.

At the heart of the story are the slaves themselves. Their stories are heartbreaking but, in the midst of tragedy, readers discover a quiet dignity that leads some slaves to resist and aspire to freedom. Despite being abandoned by the international community, despite suffering a crime so monstrous as to strip their awareness of their own humanity, somehow, some enslaved men regain their dignity, some enslaved women learn to trust men, and some enslaved children manage to be kids. Skinner bears witness for them, and for the millions who are held in the shadows.

In so doing, he has written one of the most morally courageous books of our time, one that will long linger in the conscience of all who encounter it, and one that – just perhaps – may move the world to constructive action.

Understanding Global Slavery: A Reader

Although slavery is illegal throughout the world, we learned from Kevin Bales’s highly praised exposé, Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy, that more than twenty-seven million people – in countries from Pakistan to Thailand to the United States–are still trapped in bondage. With this new volume, Bales, the leading authority on modern slavery, looks beyond the specific instances of slavery described in his last book to explore broader themes about slavery’s causes, its continuation, and how it might be ended. Written to raise awareness and deepen understanding, and touching again on individual lives around the world, this book tackles head-on one of the most urgent and difficult problems facing us today.

Each of the chapters in Understanding Global Slavery explores a different facet of global slavery. Bales investigates slavery’s historical roots to illuminate today’s puzzles. He explores our basic ideas about what slavery is and how the phenomenon fits into our moral, political, and economic worlds. He seeks to explain how human trafficking brings people into our cities and how the demand for trafficked workers, servants, and prostitutes shapes modern slavery. And he asks how we can study and measure this mostly hidden crime. Throughout, Bales emphasizes that to end global slavery, we must first understand it. This book is a step in that direction.

To Plead Our Own Cause: Personal Stories by Today’s Slaves

Boys strapped to carpet looms in India, women trafficked into sex slavery across Europe, children born into bondage in Mauritania, and migrants imprisoned at gunpoint in the United States are just a few of the many forms slavery takes in the twenty-first century. There are twenty-seven million slaves alive today, more than at any point in history, and they are found on every continent in the world except Antarctica.

To Plead Our Own Cause contains ninety-five narratives by slaves and former slaves from around the globe. Told in the words of slaves themselves, the narratives movingly and eloquently chronicle the horrors of contemporary slavery, the process of becoming free, and the challenges faced by former slaves as they build a life in freedom. An editors’ introduction lays out the historical, economic, and political background to modern slavery, the literary tradition of the slave narrative, and a variety of ways we can all help end slavery today.

Halting the contemporary slave trade is one of the great human-rights issues of our time. But just as slavery is not over, neither is the will to achieve freedom, “plead” the cause of liberation, and advocate abolition. Putting the slave’s voice back at the heart of the abolitionist movement, To Plead Our Own Cause gives occasion for both action and hope.

Paradoxes of Integration: Female Migrants in Europe (International Perspectives on Migration)

This timely and innovative book analyses the lives of new female migrants in the EU with a focus on the labour market, domestic work, care work and prostitution in particular. It provides a comparative analysis embracing eleven European countries from Northern (UK, Germany, Sweden, France), Southern (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Cyprus) and Eastern Europe (Poland, Slovenia), i.e. old and new immigration countries as well as old and new market economies.

It maps labour market trends, welfare policies, migration laws, patterns of employment, and the working and social conditions of female migrants in different sectors of the labour market, formal and informal. It is particularly concerned with the strategies women use to counter the disadvantages they face. It analyses the ways in which gender hierarchies are intertwined with other social relations of power, providing a gendered and intersectional perspective, drawing on the biographies of migrant women.

The book highlights policy relevant issues and tries to uncover some of the contradictory assumptions relating to integration which it treats as a highly normative and problematic concept. It reframes integration in terms of greater equalisation and democratisation (entailed in the parameters of access, participation and belonging), pointing to its transnational and intersectional dimensions.

Gridlock: Labor, Migration, and Human Trafficking in Dubai

The images of human trafficking are all too often reduced to media tales of helpless young women taken by heavily accented, dark-skinned captors—but the reality is a far cry from this stereotype. In the Middle East, Dubai has been accused of being a hotbed of trafficking. Pardis Mahdavi, however, draws a more complicated and more personal picture of this city filled with migrants. Not all migrant workers are trapped, tricked, and abused. Like anyone else, they make choices to better their lives, though the risk of ending up in bad situations is high.

Legislators hoping to combat human trafficking focus heavily on women and sex work, but there is real potential for abuse of both male and female migrants in a variety of areas of employment – whether on the street, in a field, at a restaurant, or at someone’s house. Gridlock explores how migrants’ actual experiences in Dubai contrast with the typical discussions – and global moral panic – about human trafficking.

Mahdavi powerfully contrasts migrants’ own stories with interviews with U.S. policy makers, revealing the gaping disconnect between policies on human trafficking and the realities of forced labor and migration in the Persian Gulf. To work toward solving this global problem, we need to be honest about what trafficking is – and is not – and to finally get past the stereotypes about trafficked persons so we can really understand the challenges migrant workers are living through every day.