St. John's University Athletics
St. John's Joins Effort to Shut Out Trafficking
2/6/2017 12:00:00 AM | General
QUEENS, N.Y. - From Feb. 6-11, students at St. John's University will participate in an effort to help end human trafficking and forced labor, an issue affecting an estimated 21 million people globally, with 5.5 million estimated to be child victims.
The National Consortium for Academics and Sports (NCAS) has partnered with the U.S. Fund for UNICEF's End Trafficking project to create Shut Out Trafficking, a program to raise awareness against human trafficking on university and college campuses across the United States each academic year.
Using sports as a platform to help inform campuses about the issue, the campaign engages student-athletes, coaches, and athletic administrators to educate the larger student body on the issue.
Shut Out Trafficking Week, beginning on Monday, Feb. 6, will involve multiple areas on campus to raise awareness and bring the hidden injustices of human trafficking into the open.
The events kicked off on Monday with students signing a pledge to end human trafficking.
On Tuesday, Dr. Richard Lapchick's `67C and daughter, Emily Pasnak-Lapchick, will present in the Little Theatre at 5:30 p.m.
Wednesday is the feast day of St. Josephine Bakhita, who was kidnapped as a child and sold into slavery in Sudan and Italy. Students and faculty will have the opportunity to hear her story at the 12:15 p.m. mass at St. Thomas More Church.
On Thursday, St. John's will host a screening of the movie "Not My Life," a film about human trafficking and modern slavery with a discussion to follow. The movie and discussion will take place from 1:50 p.m.-3:15 p.m. in the DAC 307.
Friday, stop by the fair trade table in the DAC Coffee House and find out how to reduce your slavery footprint.
Finally, on Saturday at the St. John's men's basketball game, there will be a special announcement from our student-athletes about the importance of shutting out human trafficking.
Human trafficking has been equated to modern-day slavery, affecting children, women and men in all 50 states and across the globe. This horrific practice subjects children, women and men to force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of exploitation.
If you suspect someone is a victim of trafficking, call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or text "info" or "help to "BeFree" (233-733).