It’s complicated

Why is human trafficking so hard to talk about? It’s complicated, and efforts to combat the crime are fraught with big words and alphabet soup—like USCSAHT, the U.S. Catholic Sisters Against Human Trafficking. Yeah, it’s a mouthful, but we need to keep talking.

Salvatorian Sister Jean Schafer, SDS, is a member of USCSAHT, a national network that helps raise awareness about human trafficking, provides services to help trafficking survivors, and pushes for federal laws to abolish this modern-day form of slavery. Sr. Jean (pictured far right) attended the network’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C. earlier this month. She met with Sister Estrella Castalone, FMA, who leads Talitha Kum, an international network of Catholic sisters working the same beat on the other side of the world. They talked about how the two groups can work together to shut down this criminal enterprise.

Make no mistake–human trafficking is a business—and there’s big money in it. It’s the very reason Sr. Jean and her USCSAHT cohorts also met with members of the U.S. State Department about blocking slavery in the supply chains of U.S. companies. And spent a day with staffers of key U.S. Senators and Representatives from their home states to talk about legislation to boost services for trafficking victims. Sr. Jean welcomes you into the conversation every month in her STOP Trafficking! online newsletter.