Organization helps fight sex trade

A July letter from an Antioch woman praised Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk for co-sponsoring the "End Modern Slavery Initiative" in the U.S. Senate. I heartily agree - especially when the latest TIP (Trafficking in Persons) Report claims some 27 million people in the world, many of them young, are trapped in this modern bondage.

How do you wrap your mind, and heart, around such a staggering number?

One way, I believe, is to "think globally, act locally," advice from the '70s still as potent and practical as ever.

In our own urban/suburban areas, that means believing the stories you hear of young girls - often runaway and homeless - being lured into prostitution and the sex trade by illicit traffickers, often right at our local malls.

And once you believe it, to know also of groups and people of good will trying to help these victims escape the trade to a better life, where they can be valued as people of worth.

One such group is Dreamcatcher Foundation. Co-founded by Chicagoan Brenda Myers-Powell, herself a sex-trade victim before escaping it, Dreamcatcher works directly to help young women, at risk and already in the trade, move toward a better life. An award-winning documentary on Dreamcatcher is being shown at the Metropolis Theater in Arlington Heights Sept. 27. All proceeds go to Dreamcatcher for its work.

Nancy J. Stelling

Arlington Heights