Human Trafficking and the Phillipines

On Wednesday's PBS NewsHour, special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reported on human trafficking in the Philippines, where people desperate to find work sometimes find themselves in vulnerable situations.  But human trafficking -- illegal sexual or other forced labor -- is not relegated to overseas. Here in the United States in the 1970s, Colorado lawyer Beth Klein saw her grandfather buy a mail-order bride. Even as a girl, she knew it was a "harmful, shameful and inhumane" practice.
As an adult, she decided to focus on helping the victims of human trafficking and founded The Summit to End It. Her organization represents mail-order brides who have been expelled from their homes, child brides and children involved in prostitution.
PBS NewsHour is continuing the conversation about human trafficking both overseas and here in the U.S. in an online Q&A.  I hope you will share the link to the Lazaro’s report and encourage your friends and colleagues to submit questions about human trafficking in the United States and abroad to Beth Klein and Fred de Sam Lazaro.
To be a part of the conversation in our Agents for Change series. Tweet your questions about human trafficking to Beth Klein and Fred de Sam Lazaro @newshourworld and use the hashtag #traffickingAC. You can also post questions in the comments section on our Rundown blog http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/10/human-trafficking.html. We'll share answers to selected questions on the NewsHour website.
Lazaro’s report from the Philippines is the first in a series of reports about Agents for Change – motivated individuals who respond to entrenched social challenges like poverty, food security and access to basic amenities with innovative solutions that go beyond short-term fixes to create sustainable solutions that change the system, improve the local economy and impact people’s daily lives.
Fred de Sam Lazaro is director of the Under-Told Stories Project, a program that combines international journalism and teaching, and a fellow at the Hendrickson Institute for Ethical Leadership at Saint Mary's University of Minnesota.
He has served as a NewsHour correspondent since 1985 and is a regular contributor and substitute anchor for PBS' Religion and Ethics Newsweekly. He also has directed films from India and the Democratic Republic of Congo for the documentary series, Wide Angle.
Lazaro has reported from 55 countries from Haiti to sub-Saharan Africa to south Asia. He has focused on stories and issues that relate to poverty, including HIV/AIDS and global health, development and social entrepreneurship. Fred was born in Bangalore, India, and lives in St. Paul, Minn.
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