As members of the Alliance to End Human Trafficking community of partners, collaborators and those engaged in direct advocacy and accompaniment, we each make a commitment to refuse to look away. Opening our hearts, our minds and our lives to see the harm done to others by those who deny the human dignity of another and exploit the freedom given by God.

Working to eradicate human trafficking does not happen in a silo of separation, but requires each of us to stand at the intersection of injustice and determine our individual response to address the root causes. We stand at this intersection where migration, climate, racism, violence, poverty and human degradation meet as inseparable parts of the whole that harms those we commit to see, listen to, advocate for and lift up into full view.

We each take up this work and find the way that we are called to respond to those violated through human trafficking. The way that we each respond will be as different as our individual humanity, but in this intersection, we commit ourselves to look towards, not away from.

Some among us will raise our hearts in contemplation. Others will find the invitation to bear truth and speak that truth to power – in letters, gatherings, prayer and response. Still others of us will learn the ways to be present to those who do not see as we do and find ways to build bridges of relationship rather than walls of division. And there will be those among us who are the listeners and seekers, making it possible for new communities to form around the violence we experience around us. However the Spirit manifests, we refuse to look away but instead look within to the intersection where God dwells and we respond.

We dwell in this intersection – because we are called.