In the News

LA: EnterpRISE will provide career and financial literacy training and access to startup funding opportunities  LOS ANGELES — Mayor Eric Garcetti today announced the creation of LA: EnterpRISE, a pilot program to drive entrepreneurship opportunities for Angelenos experiencing housing insecurity or homelessness.   “Every Angeleno should have a chance to nurture their...

Bill Would Provide Post-Conviction Relief to Victims of Sex Trafficking, Labor Trafficking, and Other Forms of Human Trafficking Washington, DC –U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH), today announced bipartisan legislation, the Trafficking Survivors Relief Act of 2020, which would clear the federal criminal records of the survivors of...

Call of California to revise SB477 Thousands of temporary workers are being trafficked into forced labor in California under threat of violence, deportation, and harm to their families.  California attracts more temporary foreign workers than anywhere else in the US. As the fifth largest global economy, workers on lawful visas from all over the world seek...

The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Friday to require certain businesses to post contact information for people to report human trafficking. The notices will have information such as a human trafficking hotline number. The businesses that will be required to post the information include adult or “sexually oriented businesses,”...

Shutterstock Betsy Hutson met Kendra Ross at a specialized aftercare shelter for human trafficking survivors in 2015, a few years after she escaped from The Value Creators Inc., a nationwide cult formerly known as the United Nation of Islam. “Right off the bat, Kendra was interested in taking down her...

California Assembly Members Miguel Santiago (D-53rd), Mike Gipson (D-64th),  Blanca Rubio (D-48th), and Senator Henry Stern (D-27th) introduce comprehensive legislation and budget proposals to ensure California enacts better measures to prevent human trafficking. Los Angeles, California -  The Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (Cast) is proud to sponsor two...

The Center for Violence Prevention and Recovery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has launched a new initiative to assist and support individuals exploited through sex and labor trafficking in collaboration with the Center for Community Health and Health Equity’s Violence Intervention and Prevention Programs at Brigham and Women’s...

Labor trafficking victim Renuka Zellars of San Diego, center, testifies in front of the Little Hoover Commission panel on Nov. 21 at the San Diego Central Library. The other witnesses are Angela Guanzon, left, who was trafficked as a caregiver, and Jamie Beck, right, an attorney with Free to Thrive.(PhotoArt...

Labor trafficking survivors have long made up a significant number of people trafficked in California and the U.S. As a hidden epidemic, labor trafficking is prevalent in our neighborhoods, cities and rural communities, and economies. Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (Cast) has joined forces with the Little Hoover Commission...

California’s Governor Newsom has signed a groundbreaking bill into law enabling human trafficking survivors to receive lost income from California’s Crime Victim Compensation Fund (VCP). A first of its kind bill, AB 629 ensures that survivors will be empowered with resources to rebuild their lives.  “Cast applauds Governor Newsom for...

The Los Angeles-based Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (Cast) has been named the 2019 National Award Winner of the Mutual of America Community Partnership Award. The Mutual of America Community Partnership Award recognizes outstanding nonprofit organizations in the United States that have shown exemplary leadership by facilitating partnerships with...

SACRAMENTO, CA — Assemblywoman Christy Smith (D-Santa Clarita) is pleased to announce that her Assembly Bill (AB) 629 was signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom this week as part of the package of bills he signed addressing public safety and supporting victims of crime. The bill creates parity within California’s Victim Compensation Program (VCP)...

To claim lost income, they need a note from their employer—also known as their trafficker. Deborah Pembrook doesn’t remember exactly when she was first sex-trafficked, but she knows it was early—the images of abuse collide in her brain with images of childhood crayons and stuffed animals. When she finally escaped,...

SACRAMENTO – Assemblywoman Christy Smith (D-Santa Clarita) and joint-author Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) moved forward AB 629 to help human trafficking victims rebuild their lives. The bill is cosponsored by the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST) and Bet Tzedek Legal Services. Assembly Bill 629 would make human...

CAST coordinates a continuum of compassionate, whole-person care to help victims of human trafficking access the care they need to recover and thrive for a lifetime. Integrated services range from medical, mental health, and dental, to housing, legal, education, and leadership training. CAST also offers access to healing arts such...

In 1997, Ima Matul, a seventeen-year-old living in rural Indonesia, was offered a job as a live-in housekeeper in Los Angeles. The person who recruited her promised that, if she worked for a few years, she could leave with enough money to help her family build a new house and start...

At Courtney’s House, a Washington, DC, center for young sex trafficking survivors, founder Tina Frundthas been seeing kids every day who are afraid of the government shutdown. They’re worried, she says, that it is affecting the many services they sorely need. She spoke of one 19-year-old she works with who is still in school and...

The Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST) and the Freedom Network USA, with a combined membership of 80 leading U.S.-based anti-trafficking organizations, advocates and service providers, strongly condemn President Trump’s continued rhetoric attempting to justify a southern border wall in order to stop human trafficking. This misinformation is dangerous...

Every three years CAST and its national advocacy partners, The Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST) and The Freedom Network, USA, work to reauthorize the Federal Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA). The TVPRA, first enacted in 2000, is the most important piece of federal anti-trafficking legislation designed to...

Cast is set to announce that we have identified a legislator to author our 2019 $12.5M budget proposal! This funding is critical to sustaining programs and services for California’s human trafficking victims trafficking seeking safety and a path to freedom in 2020, keeping the doors open at Cast and California’s...