The Alliance to End Human Trafficking (AEHT) is a collaborative, faith-based national network that offers education, supports access to survivor services, and engages in advocacy to eradicate human trafficking. We work to inform the public, prevent this assault on human dignity, and assist survivors to live fulfilling lives. Our members include 200+ congregations of Catholic Sisters, coalitions working against human trafficking and individuals who share our mission.
Traffickers thrive where vulnerability is high, where options are limited and individuals can be manipulated through their unique circumstances. AEHT believes in the inherent dignity of the individual and basic human rights to be free from sale and exploitation. Our mission seeks to eradicate human trafficking based on key advocacy and education
principles.
This can be accomplished by viewing survivors as individuals in precarious circumstances who will be treated fairly, with dignity, and with trauma-informed policies. Human trafficking survivors are U.S. citizens, new migrants who were trafficked to the U.S, and those trafficked into our country. More work should be done to locate survivors and to change policies within federal agencies that fail to question or identify whether human trafficking is taking place in federal programs or with federal funding. We must transform unjust policies and practices that harm survivors of human trafficking or threaten those who are vulnerable to human trafficking. Such policies must be exposed and rejected.
We believe that trafficking survivors should be supported, aided in their recovery, and allowed to effectuate their voices in our government. Our country should provide funding for recovery and support services to help heal from the trauma of being trafficked. Persons who have been trafficked should have the opportunity to provide advice and recommendations to legislators and policy makers to improve U.S. policy and programming efforts.
Governments, businesses, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) must be encouraged to adopt a human rights-based approach to human trafficking that addresses the root causes of trafficking and exploitation. We must expose and address how forced migration increases the risk that vulnerable adults and children will be trafficked and exploited.
Our country must do more to protect the innocence of children and ensure our country is a bastion for the treatment of children domestically and abroad. A cyber and online strategy should be developed so that technology and the internet are not used to exploit, abuse, and traffic children. In addition, Artificial Intelligence poses new risks to online exploitation, grooming, and trafficking of children, and more education is needed for adults and children.
It is essential to urge governments to support initiatives aimed at enhancing the capabilities of national and international legal and policy frameworks in preventing discrimination against girls and women. This includes ensuring their access to quality gender-specific education and safeguarding their rights to property, social security, land tenure, and inheritance rights.
Our federal immigration policies should be fair and just, and treat individuals and families with respect for their circumstances and why they came to be in the United States. Vulnerabilities exist in this population, and solutions for unaccompanied minors, asylum seekers, and others should allow for self-sufficiency.
Take action to end human trafficking, support survivors, and protect the vulnerable! See our current advocacy campaigns.
Here you can find helpful resources for engaging in effective advocacy, including how to plan a visit with your legislator. See our advocacy resources.
With these overarching goals, we advocate for several federal and state administrative and legislative actions. See our current legislative and policy objectives.
