Human Trafficking Amanda Colegrove Summary

Amanda Colegrove grew up knowing that God is for justice. This knowledge was firmly planted in her mind from a young age, so that she cared deeply about social justice, too. She enrolled at Grand Rapids Community College when she was in her thirties, since college is expensive, beginning in the sociology department. In her first geography class, Amanda Colegrove read a paragraph that changed everything she had known about human trafficking. She had always cared about social justice, yet she had not been aware that human trafficking was still practiced today, even in America. Like so many Americans, she had believed that all slavery had ended with the Emancipation Proclamation. This new knowledge opened the door to years of research, as she studied how human trafficking occurred – how and where and who and why. After community college, she attended Aquinas and continued her studies in human trafficking. She even developed a new method to research local trafficking, since large

This unique method of mapping risk showed that, as assumed, sex trafficking was more prevalent in large cities and areas dominated by military forces. Yet contrary to popular belief, her maps showed that the risk of labor trafficking was approximately equal anywhere in Missouri. These maps disprove the beloved notion that America is clean of such uncomfortable topics as human trafficking and slavery. Not everyone can devote their life to researching social justice and standing up for human rights, like Amanda Colegrove. What she does is far above the scope of many individuals. Yet, as she pointed out, there are ways that anyone can be involved. The simplest is to simply be aware of what human trafficking looks like in real life. Beyond that, though, legislation needs to hear voices speaking up for social justice so that they will step in and do