By James E. Copple   Where are the men? Gender-violence and human-trafficking are issues caused mostly by men but challenged mostly by women. There is a conspicuous silence and lack of interest on the part of Muslim men, government leaders (mostly men) and by men in general. Recent attention to the kidnapping of 276 Nigerian […]

By James E. Copple Human-trafficking lives in the shadows of our global urban centers.  “Shadows.” That’s her word, and she is a 15-year-old Eritrean girl sold by her parents and trafficked via container-truck to Nairobi, where she lives in a small shack. And hers isn’t an uncommon story in East Africa, where famine and drought […]

By James E. Copple On March 9, a global community of organizations, faith communities and governments will gather in places of worship and community centers for FREEDOM SUNDAY to confront and speak out about human-trafficking and slavery, an issue that affects 25 million people worldwide. And that’s a conservative estimate. Principally expressed in coerced-sex and […]

By James E. Copple The death of Nelson Mandela has allowed me to reflect on an era rapidly disappearing in the consciousness of our collective history. Apartheid was one of the many issues that confronted my generation. The war in Vietnam, the Civil Rights movement, “women’s liberation” and apartheid jumped out of the headlines and […]

By James E. Copple The underlying foundation of human trafficking is that individuals can be viewed and used as commodities that can be traded in exchange for certain services. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act, in its various authorizations, has defined human trafficking as the use of force, fraud or coercion to transport persons across international borders […]

Voices from the Night: The Power and Promise of Community Change is now out there for everybody to see and read. It is a “story book.” I am a story teller! I have had the opportunity to be a witness to so many events in so many environments. Whether it is the preacher in me, the teacher in me, or the advocate in me, or all of the above, I cannot tell a story without applying a lesson.

Patricia Melnice of Tough Angels has spent the last three weeks with me in Kenya visiting sites related to the work of the Kenya Gender-Based Violence Partnership. This partnership  consists of SAI/Servant Forge, UNICEF, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Tough Angels, the Crossroads Church of the Nazarene in Arizona, and Nazarene Compassionate Ministries in Kenya.  […]

We will never change cultural norms around bias or prejudice until we change them in the faith communities that shape our values. This is particularly true when it comes to our views or attitudes about women. All the monotheistic religions have a horrible history when it comes to women. This is why in the 21st […]

In the second presidential debate, Katherine Fenton asked the following question: “In what new ways do you intend to rectify the inequalities in the workplace, specifically regarding females making 72 percent of what their male counterparts earn?”