Shameful Stuff

In the last week, I have heard two excellent speakers talk about sex trafficking — one is an internationally recognized attorney and the other is a best selling author.

The attorney is Lauren Hersh who is the founder and national director of World Without Exploitation, the national coalition to end human trafficking and sexual exploitation. She spoke to a group of men and women at a NCJW luncheon in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. In addition to being a lawyer, she is an activist and educator on combating violence against women and girls. It was so scary to hear her talk about young women being recruited via social media especially on Instagram.

At the next Palm Beach Gardens event, Conversations with Jewish Women Authors, I heard Talia Carner (photo below), author of The Third Daughter. The Third Daughter is a historical fiction novel exposing a shameful secret about the trafficking of young Jewish women from Russia to Argentina in the late nineteenth century. Men would pose as wealthy grooms promising to give a prospective young bride a better life in America. The new husband would then enslave her into a life of prostitution.  According to Carner, this true, ugly scheme operated for more than seventy years with impunity. When Carner was doing research in Argentina, suddenly people would stop talking when she mentioned the historical facts of sex trafficking in the Jewish community. When asked about the evolution of the book, Carner replied, “I could not not write the book.”

I am proud to be a member of JWF,of the Greater Palm Beaches, where we work to advance the status of women and girls in the US and Israel through strategic grantmaking, advocacy and education, and leadership development programs to create long lasting social change.

Tags: conversations with jewish women authors, empowering women, JWF, JWF greater palm beaches, lauren hersh, sex trafficking, social media recruitment, Talia Carner, The Third Daughter, world without exploitation