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Dear Friends of ECPAT-USA,
On behalf of the team at ECPAT-USA, I wish to extend my heartfelt thanks for your support in the past year.
As 2019 draws to a close, I’d like to reflect on these remarkable seven weeks since joining ECPAT-USA as Executive Director. Following in the footsteps of our founder, Carol Smolenski, who dedicated nearly three decades of her life to protecting at-risk children, I am tempted to point to some rather mundane milestones, such as learning how to navigate the labyrinthian Barclays Center subway station or jiggle the key in the lock “just so” to enter ECPAT-USA’s office. When I open that door, however, my embarrassment over the insignificance of those tasks is swept away by the enormity of the work that confronts us. Sex trafficking remains a lethal threat to our children, and online technology has created terrifying new ways to exploit even infants. Rather than shy away from these horrific crimes, my inspiring ECPAT-USA colleagues have doubled down and increased outreach to students in middle and high school workshops, developed a social media campaign to raise awareness with teens, and deepened training for socially responsible businesses that realize the fight against sex trafficking protects both our kids and their own bottom line.
The most exciting revelation of this short tenure  has emerged through my interactions with a dizzying range of anti-trafficking heroes. In one week, I joined feminist icon and writer Gloria Steinem and Sheila Katz, CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women, to discuss whether commercial sex could truly be considered a “choice” for marginalized people who have no other options for survival. Gloria, who elsewhere has discussed prostitution as “the world’s oldest oppression” thoughtfully questioned why it was acceptable to buy and sell the bodies of the most vulnerable members of society instead of addressing systemic discrimination and providing meaningful opportunities for self-sufficiency.
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