Preventing Trafficking in High-Risk Areas
By Sharon, Director of Bridges4Justice, June 2025
Fourteen years ago, a team visiting India sat in a hot room. The time had been set aside to learn about the devaluation of women and children in that culture. Above the whir of the ceiling fans, we strained to hear what was being said through a translator. Suddenly something caught my attention.
I spoke up and asked, “Would you repeat that?”
“Girls are disappearing from our villages – many every year.”
Moved by what we were hearing we wanted to learn more. Two weeks later, several people traveled by train to a village to meet with a small group of women, gathered by a local freedom partner.
They listened with open hearts as the women told their painful stories. One woman, pleadingly asked, “What would you do if you didn’t have milk for your baby?” In another instance, a sixteen-year-old girl sat silently, gripped by fear and shame, but when it was her turn, she bravely told her story. When she was 13 years old, a man, later understood to be a trafficker, convinced her family to send her to a city where a job was waiting for her in a factory. He would arrange for her earnings to be sent back to feed the large family. Instead of a factory, she was locked up in a brothel, forced to serve many customers each day, and not allowed to see the light of day for three and a half years. Just two and a half weeks before meeting our partners, she had miraculously escaped, but when she returned to her village and family, her hope was shattered. Her struggling family still saw her as an extra burden and mouth to feed. She begged our partners to give her a job.
From these interactions, our friends learned that desperation driven by poverty makes the women and families vulnerable to the traps of the traffickers. Women and youth are promised jobs but end up working in the sex trade in red light areas where they are trapped and cut off from help.
As followers Christ the team was convinced that they needed to immediately act, and so they rented a room, purchased sewing machines, and hired an instructor, and within a month, started a women’s holistic training program with six women in the program. They provided a small weekly stipend for each woman to help cover basic expenses to make it possible for them to attend the daily program.
Since that time, Bridges4Justice has worked with our national freedom partners to develop the holistic curriculum and train the instructors to be able to multiply the training program. Currently it has multiplied to seven locations in high-risk areas with over 250 women trained.
The yearlong training curriculum includes:
- Sewing and embroidery skills- equipping them to make clothing and other marketable products
- Basic business and job skills- such as math, communication, teamwork, job interview preparation and more
- Health lessons- Understanding their body, the spread of disease and how to avoid water-borne illnesses, importance of cleanliness, exercise, nutrition...
- Awareness of human trafficking and principles to stay safe
- Oral Bible stories pointing them to God’s redemptive love for them
Bridges4Justice training programs are changing lives. Some women get jobs and others purchase machines and start their own businesses. By the close of the training, the women are able to make clothes for themselves as well as take orders from their neighbors and friends. Mothers are able to feed their families, keep their children in school, and protect themselves and their children from schemes of the traffickers. Some of the women are also spreading trafficking awareness in their communities, sharing the Bible stories, and assisting in local children’s ministries. In one area, women have started a co-op and are selling products together.
To see products that some of these women make, visit our shop page here! Your purchase does make a difference! When women can earn an income for their families, they can keep their children in school and are less likely to force them into an early marriage or to send them away for a risky job.
Bridges4Justice encourages and equips the women’s training program through prayer, financial support, and training of instructors. Since the simple start of the first program with just six women in a rented room to over 250 women graduated, not one has been trafficked or had any of their children trafficked.
Together we are bridges for God’s justice, helping prevent trafficking as we equip and empower vulnerable women in high-risk areas. We invite you to partner with Bridges4Justice to make a difference in the life of a woman, her family, and community. A one-time gift of $44 provides one month of training for one woman. A monthly donation of $44 or a yearly donation of $528 covers the full cost of one woman’s year of training.
To support a woman in training go to our give page- Give – Bridges4Justice.
