45.8 million.

That is the amount of people currently trapped in the confinement of modern slavery.

To give you a bit of context, if you take the entire population of California and combine it with the population of Missouri, you would still be a few hundred people short of this number. Human trafficking is a glaring issue in our society that can involve forced labor, sexual exploitation, organ removal, and much more. Quite frankly, this societal problem does not get the attention in which it so deserves... that is, until recently.

Last school year, hundreds of campus chapters from various organizations came together and decided to begin the End Modern Slavery Initiative in order to shed a light on this issue. They placed hundreds of phone calls, held dozens of meetings, and gathered 400,000 signatures, their goal being to make modern slavery an issue that could be fought against on a higher level. They succeeded. On Thursday, our International Justice Mission campus chapter at Mizzou received a link with the headline, "U.S. Awards $25 Million to the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery". Enclosed in the press statement from U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tiller were the words I and many others in the group were elated to see; our government, on a national level, had chosen to take a stand and fight.

I will hold hope that the program will reach out with financial aid to the many non-profits who have already engaged in this battle. International Justice Mission is based in Washington D.C. and aids in the fight by rescuing victims, restoring them to their community, working with local law enforcement to capture their captors, and representing the survivors in the broken justice systems of their countries. Blackbox International rescues and heals boys who have been sexually exploited in the trafficking system while Rapha House does the same for girls. Both of these organizations focus on rehabilitating the victims by providing housing, therapists, education, and skills training; their goal is to love, rescue, and heal all while raising awareness in hope of preventing, and eventually ending, the exploitation. An organization run by Ashton Kutcher called Thorn is fighting digitally from behind the screen (see his address to Congress here). The nonprofit has built many projects through which they attempt to intercede with child escort requests, infiltrate phone conversations to help victims escape, and create codes and programs to help law enforcement catch or track the victims' traffickers.

Each of these organizations has chosen to not sit idly by and watch others fall to the hands of injustice. They deserve the funding, and I pray that the new government program will help them with that, but the fight doesn't stop there. It starts with us. My ultimate hope is that the governmental program will assist Americans in realizing that this issue is still prevalent and is still affecting millions of people across the globe as well as in the U.S. It's incredibly easy to aid these organizations whether it be prayerfully, financially, or physically. The success of the End Modern Slavery Initiative is glaring proof that we can make a difference. Our voices are heard. What we do matters. Choose to be someone that cultivates change. Stand up and speak out. Together, we can someday end human trafficking.