NIGHTLIGHT BLOG

(By Annie Dieselberg, NightLight Founder & CEO) With each visit to the detention center, we saw her grow weaker. This woman had already endured exploitation and hardship, and now she was caught in a difficult immigration situation. Her passport had been taken from her by others, and when she attempted to return home using emergency travel documents, those documents were not accepted. Instead of boarding a plane, she was taken into detention, where she remained while waiting f

(Guest Post by Nishka Gurung Capstone Service Project Student) Human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation are uncomfortable topics to address. As a 16-year-old student, I heard about these issues from visiting NGOs at my church and school. I heard, but I didn't fully understand. Trafficking and exploitation seemed so distant from my own community. Besides, as a teenager, how could I do anything to help address such a complex, difficult, and large problem? I didn't t

(By Dan Turbiak, NightLight Bangkok) On the surface, NightLight Bangkok and NightLight Missouri look very different. They’re in different countries, with different cultures, on opposite sides of the world. While that may be true, there are striking similarities between the work in both locations. Both NightLight branches work to assist women who have experienced sexual exploitation and violence — women who have complex trauma and circumstances that affect multiple areas of th

By Shauna Storey, COO of NightLight International I didn’t set out looking for anti-trafficking work. Like many people, my introduction to human trafficking struck as something that was both heartbreaking and hard to comprehend. I remember (way back in 2009!) sitting in a breakout session at a conference in Waco, TX, hearing a team of people talk about their work with human trafficking victims. I didn’t have language for it yet, but I was shocked that something so deeply unju

Nattaya’s life unraveled slowly, then all at once. As a young mother with two children, she worked hard as a seamstress to pay for their needs. Her troubles began when her boyfriend started having an affair with another woman. After becoming physically abusive to Nattaya, he left her alone as a single parent. Then, she lost her job as a seamstress. She felt desperate and didn't know what to do. A neighbor told her about an opportunity in one of Bangkok’s red light areas that