“All I ever wanted was to be loved and have a family…” – Shana, sex trafficked in the US
Deep within us is a desire to be loved and accepted. We are made for family. For community. For a place and people who are there for us. When that is stripped away through death, abandonment, or abuse, it leave a void at our very core. Voids are tricky things. Without guidance or support, we’ll go searching for something to fulfill that – and the results are often horrific.
This is where vulnerability starts – at the place where family and community is absent. This reality is far too present in every country around the world. Over the last decade, there has been a great amount of work done to expose the brutal realities of gender based violence, sex trafficking and domestic slavery.
Some of those leaders are pulitzer winners, Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn (a husband and wife team) who have shed light on some of those issues, both around the world and in our own backyard.
These two books and documentaries are difficult to watch (and we recommend that you use personal viewing discretion), but we hope they help you understand more about some of the oppressions vulnerable women and children face around the world.
Half the Sky
A Path Appears
The Locust Effect
Why Not Today
A Thousand Sisters
We cannot make a difference for all at once, but we do believe that as we work together, lives can change. Or like the title in “A Path Appears” suggests: “Hope is like a path in the countryside. Originally, there is nothing – but as people walk this way again and again, a path appears.” —Lu Xun, Chinese essayist, 1921
LSM is working hard to reach vulnerable children in Haiti and Ethiopia.
- Learn more about how we’re rescuing child slaves in Haiti here.
- Learn more about how we’re combating exploitation in Ethiopia here.