What's Happening in Our Community 

 Don't forget to attend this first time ever event to be held in Southwest Florida. Admission is free, food is free, lots of entertainment and lots of information. Thanks to all our sponsors, vendors and community involvement: everybody from the Sheriff's Office, Lee Memorial Health System, local school kids and so many donors have made this possible. 

Now all we need is you to attend!!

And speaking of attending, we will be holding our 4th Annual Theatre Night on January 16 at the Alliance of the Arts in Ft. Myers and our ARTREACH painings will be on display throughout January in the theatre. 

Theodore Cross Family Foundation 

Yaro Garcia of ACT, Alex Olivares of Catholic Charities,
our partners in the Point of Contact, Point of Rescue program, joined us and Sarah Owens and Anne Douglas of the Southwest Community Foundation for the presentation of the ceremonial check representing the Community Impact grant HTAP received. Thank you again. Along with the funding, the Community Foundation provides quarterly training and collaboration efforts. 

The Theodore Cross Foundation gave us a $2500. grant for the second year which we gratefully accepted.

The Eileen Fisher Corporation for the second year in a row supported HTAP with its North American Human Rights/Human Trafficking award of $10,000. We are so honored to be the recipient again. Eileen Fisher is a global leader in fair trade practices; we are thrilled to be associated with them on a local and corporate level. 

 We are always so thankful for the direct mail contributions by individual donors and for the other family foundation contributions we have received. We are close to breaking last year's total number of donors and amount. Keep those checks coming, please!! 

Read/Recommend/Act Campaign

Many people have told us that they would like to do something to help fight human trafficking, but they don't have the time or resources to do much. We tell them the first thing they can do to be helpful is to get informed and to inform others.One even told us it was her New Year's Resolution to read more about human trafficking and is systematically going through the list!

We've selected books that cover a broad range of aspects of human trafficking. Some are written by recovering survivors of trafficking, some by academics, some by reporters and some by fiction writers. International and North American differences and similarities are covered in others and some fit human trafficking into the global issue of violence against women. Some take a particular slant, such as a religious approach, others are very academic. All use case histories to put faces on this subject. We chose books that we felt were well-written, were classics in the field or were on the cutting edge.

We've included some popular fiction because the authors have done some research and give a sometimes dramatic twist to the stories. Just as when we watch Hollywood movies about trafficking, we know that fiction is a dramatic interpretation and not a necessarily factual account. Often fiction is what people remember and acts as an incentive to learn more. (Case in point: the movie "Taken")  

We have divided all of the books into three categories: The Big Picture"; Child Sex Trafficking; Demand and Economic Issues. 

info@humantraffickingawareness.org.

We continue to review books and add to the list. We are open to suggestions.

• Read these books and learn more about human trafficking.
• Recommend these books to your local library and bookstores and encourage others to read and buy these books.
• Act on what you've learned.

The Big Picture:

"A Crime So Monstrous" by E. Benjamin Skinner

"Ending Slavery: How we Free Today's Slaves" by Kevin Bales

 "Half the Sky" by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn

"Not for Sale" by David Batsone

 "In Our Backyard; A Christian Perspective on Human Trafficking in the United States by Nita Belles

  "Invisible Chains: Canada's Underground World of Human Trafficking" by  Benjamin Perrin

Child Sex Trafficking:

 "The Child Catchers" by Kathryn Joyce 

"Girls Like Us" by Rachel Lloyd

"My Book of Life by Angel", by Martine Leavitt (fiction) (new to the list)

"Renting Lacy",  A Story of America's Prostituted Children" by Linda Smith

"Somebody's Daughter" by Julian Sher

"Stolen Lives" by Jaycee Duggard

"The Slave Across the Street" by Theresa Flores

"The Slave Next Door" by Kevin Bales and Ron Soodalter

"A Walk Across the Sun" by Corbin Addison (fiction)

"The White Umbrella: Walking with Survivors of Sex Trafficking" by Mary Frances Bowley (fiction) (new to the list)

Demand and the Economic Issues:

"Bitter Chocolate: The Dark Side of the World's Most Seductive Sweet" by Carol Off 

"The Forgotten" by David Baldacci (fiction)

"The Johns" by Victor Malarek

"The Natashas" by Victor Malarek

"Nobodies" by John Bowe