Family,

Our 1st Annual Concert With a Cause is coming October 29th at 6:00-9:00 p.m. in The Refuge. There will be 4 local, student-led bands and artists performing on our stage. We hope to encourage and embrace music in a great way while supporting a great cause.

Red Thread Movement is an organization that we first encountered this past summer. Their movement is raising awareness of the global human rights crime of sexual slavery, particularly of women and young girls. Their work is being intentionally done in Nepal. 

Here are some overwhelming/tragic/shocking facts about sex trafficking according to their website:

There are more people in slavery today than at the height of the Atlantic slave trade.

Adults and children in forced labor, bonded labor, and forced prostitution around the world: 12.3 million (Trafficking in Persons Report, 2010).

After drugs, human trafficking is the world's second largest criminal enterprise (U.S. State Department).

The global market of child trafficking is over $12 billion a year, with over 2 million child victims (UNICEF).

The average age of entry for children victimized by the sex trade industry is 12 years old. (U.S. Department of Justice).

There are nearly 300,000 children at risk every year for commercial sexual exploitation (U.S. Department of Justice).

It has been estimated that 100,000 minors are in the commercial sex trade in the United States (Polaris Project).

Approximately 80% of human trafficking victims are women and girls… up to 50% are minors (U.S. State Department).

An estimated 30-40,000 women and girls are trafficked across the border of Nepal into India every year (although most documents say 12,000, many Nepalese NGOs, including KIN, expect that the number is much higher based on the number of trafficking situations they're encountering at the border units on a daily basis).

In a single Red Light District in Mumbai, there are approximately 20,000 Nepalese girls in forced prostitution (KIN).

By age 16, approximately 60% of Nepalese girls in the brothels in Mumbai have contracted HIV (KIN).

These statistics are hard to comprehend and should break our hearts.

So the next question is how can YOU help? Come to the concert and buy a Red Thread Bracelet. They cost $5 and every penny helps raise awareness of this issue.  (You don't have to buy a bracelet to come to the concert.)

Check out more about the Red Thread Movement here: http://www.redthreadmovement.org/index.html

Hope to see you at the concert!

Casey