Dear Friend,
Last week, as the scale of the terrible natural disaster of the South Asian Tsunami began to sink in, it was even more shocking for us to hear reports of human traffickers are crawling into the ruins to steal children into slavery. Sadly, for those of us who work against slavery, this was not surprising.
Whenever disaster strikes and the rule of law collapses, human traffickers move quickly into the vacuum and prey upon the vulnerable and desperate. This occurs in civil wars, when people lose their homes and become refugees, and when children are separated from their families.
All over the world people are responding generously and quickly to help those whose lives have been shattered. We must also work hard, by warning survivors and rescue teams of the threat of trafficking, by providing safe shelter to victims, and by supporting every effort to recover stolen and trafficked children and punish the criminal parasites who are feeding on this tragedy.
To help make sense of the frenzy of trafficking-related news articles now emerging from the affected region, we've set up a new weblog on our website. Please visit it at
http://freetheslaves.net/tsunami/ and post your comments to let us know of any articles you find on tsunami-related trafficking or to ask us questions about this issue.
Thank you for your continued support of the modern anti-slavery movement.
Most sincerely,
Jacob Patton
Director of Outreach and Communications
Free the Slaves