Month: June 2019

The Costs of Human Trafficking

Patrick Atkinson is the executive director of The God’s Child Project, an organization that has worked to help orphaned, neglected, and exploited young people and women in Central America since 1991. In addition, Patrick Atkinson leads the Institute for Trafficked, Exploited, and Missing Persons (ITEMP), a nonprofit that works to end human trafficking around the world.

In human trafficking, people of any age or gender may be held against their will in economic or sexual slavery. The traffickers and abusers use physical force, fraud, or emotional coercion to ensnare their victims and keep them under control.

Estimates put the number of human trafficking victims in the world today at 20 to 30 million. Some estimates put the cost of obtaining a human slave at only $90 US, far less than the figure many historians assign to the purchase of a human being at the height of the 19th-century slave trade.

The increase in poverty, conflict, and societal instability around the world continue to make human trafficking easier. Organizations such as ITEMP are working to make human trafficking more difficult.

A Message for My Child Delivers a Positive Message for Children

Patrick Atkinson

Patrick Atkinson has served as the executive director of The God’s Child Project since 1991. In addition, he is the executive director of the Institute for Trafficked, Exploited, and Missing Persons, and for Asociacion Nuestros Ahijados, the Guatemala-based arm of The God’s Child Project. Through these organizations, Patrick Atkinson works to support human rights.

In 2017, The Chronicle, a publication for Minnesota’s Twin Cities region, profiled Patrick Atkinson and his work in Central America, Vietnam, and the streets of New York City, where he has helped lift vulnerable people from addiction, exploitation, and other dangers. His book, A Message for My Child, was written to promote personal safety for young people.

A Message for My Child urges young people to make positive decisions that will lead them to success. With illustrations by the author’s son, the book delivers powerful and inspirational points in simple language and a tone of acceptance that will resonate with children and teens.

The book emphasizes that parents can teach good behavior and try to help their children develop strong character, but ultimately each individual is responsible for his or her own life choices. A Message for My Child has received worldwide praise, with more than 1 million copies distributed internationally. The book has been translated into 27 different languages and is part of the permanent school curriculum in the country of India.