CWA Teams with Pro-Family Mexican Groups in Anti-Trafficking Effort
by Ed Thomas
October 24, 2005
(AgapePress) - Concerned Women for America has received a $200,000 grant from the State Department to help implement the next phase of a campaign against sex trafficking in Mexico. The funding is for phase two of the "Bridge Project," which brought five Mexican pro-family organizations to the United States in April for training. Project director Dr. Janice Crouse says those group "all went back [from the training] just fired up, ready to dream up projects that would accomplish the goals that they wanted to accomplish."
The organizations are part of the pro-family network "Red Familia" -- Spanish for "Family Network." According to Crouse, the projects within the network's approximately 200 pro-family, pro-life, pro-marriage groups include establishing a safe shelter in Mexico's red-light district; creating a training program for citizen involvement; producing a white paper and a victim database to assist in lobbying efforts for laws against sex trafficking; and law enforcement training workshops.
"[E]ach separate group is working on different projects," Crouse explains, "and all of them just really are very wonderful efforts that I think are going to make a tremendous difference in Mexico."
The broad-based effort is believed to be the most comprehensive campaign to date combating sex trafficking in Mexico. Crouse, who expects to make several visits to Mexico over the next year to help keep the projects on track, says all the groups involved feel the campaign will have a broad impact. Several organizations, such as World Vision, she adds, have been trying to concentrate on child rescue for many years.
