Salem Team

The Salem Team is well anchored in the national community. This is important when a situation comes up and a girl needs to get safely to the safe house, or when they need a teacher, or someone to listen to them. Having a network between safe houses in the region is also crucial. Frankly, it’s important to have a reliable team who know how to help safe houses at many levels - be it web-editing, teaching English, networking, or translation.

And that’s part of the reality of Being There. When you get up in the morning, you are where you are, and those whose lives you touch are present with you. When you love those who need help, you are present to their needs. The Salem Team is present there, where trafficking is normalized, where servants become slaves and often are raped. The Team is there where abuse of girls within the larger family is hushed up, and she has no idea that she shouldn’t be treated this way, until she has a chance to talk with someone like the Salem Team. This Team is there where girls are kidnapped on their way to school or market and forced into polygamous marriages. They are networked in the refugee community as well, since many who seek to go abroad end up here, in dead end situations, and need a hand out. Obviously, they can’t help every situation. But they are present, connected, available and committed.

Regional issues in Africa have forced so much displacements that recent counts indicate that there are more foreigners seeking to migrate out of Africa - risking their lives to cross the Med to Europe - than there are local people in North African port cities. This is creating an issue where the turmoil of pending elections and a history of human rights abuses charge the atmosphere. It is in these havens of chaos that human trafficking thrives. Besides sex trafficking, labor trafficking is a huge current issue, as is the harvesting of organs.