[link removed]
[link removed]
READ ON LINKEDIN ([link removed])

When I was 8, I moved from São Paulo to a village named Araguacema in northern Brazil by the Araguaia River. I was a child still trying to understand what it meant to belong.

It wasn’t the big city anymore. There were no highways. No escalators. Not even a telephone.

Kids didn’t talk about the next toy or gadget they needed—they talked about helping their uncles on the river, about harvesting yucca, about when the rain would come. The goals were not around acquiring “stuff.”

From the outside, it looked like a place left behind.

People said: there’s no opportunity here.

They meant there were no shopping malls. No fancy schools. No path to upward mobility.

But when I think back now, what I remember most clearly is this:

No child ever disappeared without the whole town looking for them.

When someone was hurting, the neighbors showed up before an ambulance did.

People sat on porches at dusk and talked, because community wasn’t an event, it was how you survived.

We didn’t have much, but we had each other.

Now, years later, I live in a world of strategy decks, encrypted emails, and efficiency metrics. I’ve sat across from policymakers who nod solemnly when I speak of trafficking, and then ask how we’ll measure “return on investment.”

I’ve come to believe that our society’s greatest failure is not what it lacks, but what it prioritizes.

We have mastered the art of productivity while forgetting how to protect.

We glorify independence while ridiculing interdependence.

We build systems that reward speed and scale, but ignore slowness, presence, and care.

And in the meantime:
* Children slip through digital cracks we don’t even know how to monitor.
* Families are displaced by economic forces they didn’t choose.
* The people sounding alarms are told their tone is “too emotional.”

We have confused development with disconnection.

We have mistaken growth for progress.

In Araguacema, I learned that poverty is real. Lack of access is real. But so is relational wealth.

So is the strength of a community that watches each other’s children as if they were their own.

I am not romanticizing poverty.

What I’m mourning is what we’ve traded away in the name of “modernity.”

Because the truth is:

A society built on unchecked consumerism, transactional relationships, and bureaucratic detachment will always produce exploitation.

And then pretend it’s shocked when trafficking happens.

If we are serious about protecting children, not just reacting to their exploitation, we must rebuild what we’ve lost:
* Social cohesion.
* Communal responsibility.
* A culture where people are not reduced to their labor or their purchasing power.

In the state of Tocantins where Arguacema is, people still greet each other on the street.

Still share food without keeping score.

Still know which house has someone who’s struggling.

I’m not just nostalgic for this past. I really do see it as a blueprint for something we’re missing.

Modern society has given us incredible tools. But without a moral architecture or depth of connection, all we’re doing is building taller structures with emptier foundations.

I carry Arguacema with me everywhere I go.

Not because it was perfect. But because it taught me something we’re in danger of forgetting:

Safety is not just the absence of danger. It is the presence of people who care enough to notice when something isn't right.

And that noticing, that vigilância amorosa—loving vigilance—is what I believe could truly disrupt exploitation at its root.

DONATE ([link removed])

Contributions from people like you combat child trafficking by reaching youth with prevention education and providing survivor care.
[link removed]

Founded in 2002, Love146 journeys alongside children impacted by trafficking today and prevents the trafficking of children tomorrow. Our prevention education and survivor care work has reached more than 100,000 young people. Our work is achieved through the power of relationships and collaboration, listening to those with lived experience, scaling proven practices, and challenging the systems that leave children vulnerable. Our core commitment is to do what is best for children.
[link removed]

* No identifiable children featured in Love146 communications are known to be exploited.

View this email in your browser ([link removed])

Copyright (C) 2025 Love146. All rights reserved.
You're receiving this email because you've signed up to receive updates from Love146.
Our mailing address is:
Love146
P.O. Box 8266
New Haven, CT 06530
USA
Update your preferences or unsubscrib ([link removed]) e ([link removed])

LOVE146 is a 501(c)(3) | TaxID 20-1168284