In the fall of 1998, while still a member of the U.S. Congress, Linda Smith traveled to Falkland Road in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India -- one of the worst brothel districts in the world. The hopeless faces of desperate women and children forced into prostitution compelled Linda to found Shared Hope International (SHI).
Linda's model for restoration has been revolutionary. SHI builds partnerships with local groups to provide homes and shelters where women and children can live without time limit. These Villages of Hope have a holistic approach to recovery, including education and job skills training.
To build momentum in the international anti-trafficking movement, Linda founded the War Against Trafficking Alliance (WATA) in January of 2001. WATA coordinates both regional and international efforts necessary to combat sex trafficking. In February 2003, WATA co-sponsored a World Summit with the U.S. Department of State, which brought together non-government and government leaders from 114 nations, all demonstrating a sustained commitment to prosecuting trafficking, providing assistance to victims, and building regional strategies to protect the vulnerable from the sex trade.
In 2006, SHI spearheaded the U.S. Mid-Term Review on the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC), bringing together leaders from across the United States to assess progress made in combating the sexual slavery of children in America. The CSEC conference resulted in a broader approach to combating trafficking that looks at the victimizer in addition to the victim. A Congressional hearing held by the Helsinki Commission on the CSEC Report was held in September 2006 to emphasize the threat to nations that CSEC poses. The U.S. Mid-Term Review Report on CSEC in America was the basis for a United States-Canada Regional Consultation in preparation for the World Congress III Against CSEC held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in November 2008. Shared Hope International delivered the report in person and participated in the outcome document from the World Congress III.
The “buyer” became the focus of the DEMAND. report and documentary in 2007, funded by the U.S. Department of State, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. In creating the DEMAND. report, Linda and team were in the field conducting research in Jamaica, the Netherlands, Japan, and the United States in order to reveal the sophisticated business model behind sex trafficking, exposing the Buyers who increase Demand and the traffickers who Supply the victims.
The DEMAND. findings revealed that startling numbers of American children are being trafficked for sex within U.S. borders. In response, from 2006-2008 Linda and Shared Hope International have been working in partnership with Anti-Trafficking Task Forces in ten U.S. cities with funding from the U.S Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Assistance. The goal was to identify and provide services to the American victims of Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking (DMST). In 2008, SHI released its DMST training video, Prostituted Children in the United States: Identifying and Responding to America’s Trafficked Youth. The video exposes the ugly truth of children exploited for sex in America and the crucial role law enforcement plays in justice for these victims. An accompanying training video geared more specifically to service providers called INTERVENE was created to assist with the identification and proper treatment of child victims of sex trafficking.
The National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking: America’s Prostituted Children compiled all of the information obtained through the four years of research in America. It was released at a Congressional briefing in July 2009, and examines the governmental and nongovernmental efforts and gaps in addressing child sex trafficking in the United States. The report encompasses research from across the United States and explores the harsh reality that hundreds of thousands of American children are victimized through sex trafficking in the United States driven by the demand for the commercial sex acts they perform.
In the summer of 2009, Linda released a book titled Renting Lacy: A Story of America’s Prostituted Children. As a foremost expert on international and domestic trafficking, Linda has spoken out against the trafficking of women and children in international forums such as the World Conference on Trafficking in Vienna and has also been featured on televised programs such as Dr. Phil and The O’Reilly Factor, in addition to countless other media coverage of these issues.
Linda's political career began in 1983 as a Washington State Legislator. She won a write-in campaign for Congress in 1994. Critical to Linda's success is her ability to galvanize the grassroots community to action. Her compassionate and uncompromising belief that every individual has dignity has carried her from advocating for permanent safe homes for children as the State Senate chair of the Committee on Children and Family Services, to the halls of Congress, and ultimately to searching out victims in red light districts around the world. Linda and her husband, Vern, reside in Vancouver, Washington and are the proud parents of two and grandparents of six.
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