I mentioned in an earlier post that WSI Webworks was in the process of building a website for Cargo, a musical by Paul Field written to celebrate the bicentennial of the abolition of the British slave trade and to raise awareness about modern day slavery. We recently launched the full site, and we encourage you to take a look and learn how you can get involved in the fight against human trafficking.

For those of us who had the privilege of working on this site–at least for me–this was a life-changing project. As we researched the topic, we were confronted with the ugly realities of modern-day slavery. Like how an estimated 2.8 million children live on the streets and one third of those are lured into prostitution within 48 hours of leaving home.  Or how roughly 50,000 women and children are lured or stolen from their homes and brought into the U.S. each year for use in the sex trade.

It’s hard to type those statistics without feeling something, some kind of responsibility. And I think that’s the only appropriate reaction, because we do have a responsibility to educate ourselves about what’s going on in our world and a responsibility to help. Not knowing is not an excuse. In the words of William Wilberforce, the great British abolitionist of the 1700 and early 1800s . . .

“We are all guilty—we ought all to plead guilty, and not to [excuse] ourselves by throwing the blame on others . . . more immediately involved in this wretched business.”

Visit Cargo-USA.org today, register to attend one of the performances, and start learning what you can do to help end human trafficking.