STRATHMORE, ALBERTA (August 8, 2011) – Hope Community Covenant Church will host a two-day conference on human trafficking and exploitation August 27-28. The church is partnering with International Justice Mission.
The conference runs from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday and a final gathering at 10 a.m. on Sunday. Registration fees are $35 (early bird by August 10), $40 by August 24, or $45 at the door.
The “Justice Tapestry” conference will gather people from across Southern Alberta. A number of artists will present visual works and performances throughout the conference.
Mark Wollenberg of International Justice Mission Canada will be the speaker. According to Wollenberg, “Today, most of us live without the knowledge that there are approximately 27 million slaves in the world. Most people do not know that there are more slaves in the world today than the 1800’s, when slaves were ripped out of Africa in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. These are people who are forced to work in cocoa and coffee plantations, brick kilns and rice mills, or in brothels, and they have no option to leave.”
Other participants include:
- Stephen Waldschmidt, director of Burnt Thicket Theatre’s “She Has A Name” (a play about human trafficking that premiered in February at Calgary’s EPCOR Centre for the Performing Arts.
- Andrew Kooman of Raise Their Voice and author of the play “She Has A Name”
- Representative from Advocacy for Victims of Abuse, a ministry of the Evangelical Covenant Church Department of Women Ministries
- Amie Gosselin of Hagar International, an aftercare and reintegration organization for victims of sex trafficking)
- Representative from Edmonton’s Centre to End All Sexual Exploitation (CEASE),
- Opportunity International, Ten Thousand Villages, and several local artists
For more information on human trafficking, visit the Covenant’s anti-trafficking website.
