Issue10 - May 2010
 

Help stop the rape trade

Did you know that millions of women and girls are sold for rape every year – 2 every minute.


Avaaz, a web-based global social action community, is currently campaigning on a number of fronts to stop the rape trade.
Their website shares the story of one victim of this trade:

Amita was a sweet 9-year-old girl who loved her family. One day, she was kidnapped, taken to a city far away and put in a cage. She was forced to have sex with dozens of men per day, and brutally beaten when she cried or refused. Five terror-filled years later, suffering from sexually transmitted disease, she died from a beating at age 14.

Amita's story is about the worst nightmare imaginable, but millions of women and girls are traded for rape every year – one of the most evil problems in our world today. The best way to tackle it is to expose the rape traders and kill their profits.

 


In January Avaaz members voted to make this a top priority for 2010, so they are beginning work across the world with expert teams, local campaigners and investigators to shut down these brutal and shadowy businesses.

Here are some of the actions being planned:

Supporting a team of expert sting operators to pose as sex customers, working with local law enforcement to expose the rape trade one location at a time, breaking trafficking rings, freeing the women and girls and hurting the profits of the rape traders.

Publicly shaming complicit officials and politicians in countries where official corruption is part of the rape trade. The ads would name and shame individuals and campaign for their removal and reform.

Partnering with sex work activists, who have deep understanding of the business, to expose the violence and take on the traffickers.

 


Running a global day of action outside slave houses
– exposing locations across the world where trade victims are being sold and raped. This shocking violence is often going on just down the road from our homes and schools.

Lobbying elected leaders to make this issue a priority and use the full resources of our governments to stop it, including passing better legislation to protect and provide for the women caught in the rape trade.

Tracking key trade routes and blocking ships carrying kidnapped girls and women in key transit ports.

Going after rape traders directly by publicly exposing them with WANTED billboards in their communities.

To find out more or to support this campaign go to:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/fight_rape_trade/?vl

Back to newsletter