From the clandestine violence of child-trafficking, hers is a voice of anguish, hope By James E. Copple In the small town of Lafilya, Abebech and her family struggled to survive the worst drought in memory. Theirs is an impoverished community of nearly a thousand people in southern Ethiopia, where social advancement is impossible, and a […]

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 […]

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 […]

Sitting by the bay in San Diego overlooking the cityscape and centering down for a few quiet moments, I could not escape the news of the morning.