Lisa Rudzik
Tallahassee, Florida
Instructional aide, barista
I’m riding for girls like Charito.* She was trafficked into forced prostitution at age 14 after she stopped receiving wages from her employer and grew desperate looking for a new job. There are a lot of ways that traffickers entrap their victims – but what all the victims have in common is one thing: vulnerability. It can come from their age, their poverty, from an abusive home life, from belonging to an oppressed minority group…but whatever the cause of their vulnerability is, it leaves victims without a voice – or hope. Charito was rescued through local police intervention, and IJM is providing her legal representation while she heals in aftercare – but there a lot more vulnerable people in our world, and that’s why I’m giving Five Weeks for Freedom.
