Sex Trafficking Awareness Month: UMD students and faculty to address sex trafficking this Thursday

Illustration by Jake Barnard

Documentary screening and community panel on “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide” will be held on Thursday, Jan. 31.

The panelists include members of the Duluth Seaway Port Authority, Mending the Sacred Hoop, and the Program for Aid to Victims of Sexual Assault (PAVSA).

In light of Sex Trafficking Awareness Month, the UMD Early Childhood Studies Program and the Women’s Resource and Action Center (WRAC) hope to spread awareness of sex slavery, a reality that affects the daily lives of women and children worldwide. The film that will be shown is only a part of the “Half the Sky” series, focusing on sex trafficking in Cambodia.

The documentary screening will be open to the public on Jan. 31 at 5 to 7 p.m. in LSBE 118.

“Half of the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide” is a film and book series that explores women from several countries to create an ongoing conversation on how communities can approach issues such as poverty, domestic violence, and providing education for women and girls. This series follows reporter Nicholas Kristof and several celebrity advocates including America Ferrera, Diane Lane, Eva Mendes, Meg Ryan, Gabrielle Union, and Olivia Wilde.

“Since it’s Sex Trafficking Awareness Month, we want to create a bigger dialogue,” Persabelle Debela said. “I hope people are fired up. I think the documentary itself is self explanatory. I hope women’s oppression can turn into opportunity.”

Debela, a WRAC intern, along with Molly Harney, Ph.D., professor of the Early Childhood Studies Program, and Megan Rabenberg, a student from the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD), invite the UMD community to engage in the conversation on how we change the way we perceive women and how we can empower them.

“Our world faces many challenges that have solutions and ‘Half the Sky’ explains them and inspires change for a way to break the cycle of poverty, sex trafficking, education, and the many other problems that the book discusses,” Rabenberg said. “I hope all students and faculty at UMD, not only in the Early Childhood Program, become involved in this change and continue to support the work we have started on campus.”