Meeting with Sister Kaeru and the Anti-Trafficking Network

In honor of Human Trafficking Awareness Month, the City Bar Justice Center’s Immigrant Women & Children Project and the New York Anti-Trafficking Network hosted a breakfast today for service providers and government agencies that work on the issue of human trafficking. Sister Kaeru, a Japanese nun who is living and working in Jakarta, Indonesia, was a special guest. She was joined by Sister Joan Kirby from the Temple of Understanding, a Global Interfaith Association which is a non-governmental organization that is a consulting agency with the UN Economic & Social Council.

Sister Kaeru has been living in Indonesia for the last 25 years working on various human rights issues. She is visiting New York for a few weeks on sabbatical and she wanted to meet with other advocates who work on anti-trafficking efforts and other related issues. In Jakarta, she has worked with various community groups on issues involving children, transportation, migration and human trafficking. She is involved with FAKTA, an acronym in Indonesian For the Poor of Jakarta, a spin-off of the Jakarta Social Justice Institute. Kaeru began her work with the Social Institute with street kids. Her work was mainly education and helping them to become self-reliant and self-supporting. She also works with FAKTA’s Women and Children’s Bureau, where she concentrates on enabling young mothers to start play groups and informal kindergartens. Sister Kaeru is also a professor of Japanese at Universitas Nasional.

Twenty representatives of various non-profit service provider agencies joined today, including staff from the Children’s Aid Society, New York Asian Women’s Center, InMotion, Safe Horizon, Sanctuary for Families, Asian American Legal Defense & Education Fund, the Lifeway Network, Catholic Charities and others. We were also joined by state and federal law enforcement representatives. The group shared information about working together collaboratively on anti-trafficking projects, from case management to legal services as well as working with law enforcement.

For more information about the City Bar Justice Center’s Immigrant Women & Children Project, click here.