08/07/25 08:30:18
The project, dubbed End Slavery Now, is the creation of sisters Joan Park (15) and Grace Park (17),
and now includes a planning group of about 24 teen girls who will hold an educational conference July 25 and 26, with an expected attendance of 50 to 60.
Human trafficking is real in Minnesota, according to Yae Joon Kwon, an advocate for the anti-human trafficking program
administered by the Korean Service Center in Minneapolis.
Kwon has been raising awareness among youth, in community groups and in law enforcement in educating about this emerging crime since she took the job in January.
Minnesota has been named as one of the 13 states in which human trafficking incidents are the highest.
Internationally-trafficked victims are often kept under control through "debt bondage," Kwon said,
where the captors tell the victims they have to work off their debts of flight tickets, visa fees, or other costs
incurred by the trafficker to bring them to the U.S. The captors may tell the victims their family will be told
and/or that children or other family members will be hurt if the victims do not cooperate. "
where individual women, some from Korea, are purchased as wives through internet commerce sites. They end up in rural areas of Minnesota where they are kept away from other people,
not permitted to travel, to learn English, and especially are not allowed to have any connection to their ethnic community in the U.S.
Grace and Joan said they were compelled to do something to aid trafficking victims after seeing a film that dramatized their situation and after hearing a presentation
that Kwon made to the youth group at their church, Korean Presbyterian Church of Minnesota. Their mother, Meeock Park, who works at the Korean Service Center, recommended they
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