Washington DC Consultation 2003

The International Sexual Trafficking & Child Sexual Abuse Consultation
A Collaboration of Viva Network's Asha Forum & The Salvation Army
February 23-26, 2003 - Washington D.C., USA

At a US-organised Global Trafficking Summit in February 2003, the US Department of State brought 400 key leaders in the fight against sex trafficking to Washington D.C. for the International Conference of Activists "Pathbreaking Strategies in the Global Fight Against Sex Trafficking". This was one of the most important gatherings of the world community related to address the global sexual exploitation of women and children.

The Asha Forum, in partnership with The Salvation Army, organized collaborative outcome driven working meetings before and after the Summit. The Salvation Army hosted the consultation free of charge.

• Nearly 30 leaders from countries worldwide participated in The Asha Forum/ Salvation Army Consultation, including: Japan, Sri Lanka, UK, US, Colombia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Russia and Zambia.
• This helped unify and enhance the global Christian response to child sexual exploitation. Approximately 50 additional organizations showed excitement about becoming involved with the growing Asha Forum movement.
• Our impact among global leaders at the Trafficking Summit increased through our presence and recommendations. We were grateful for the strong Christian voice represented at the US organized Sex Trafficking Summit.
• A collaborative questionnaire was outlined, which will prevent duplication of information gathering, decrease the cost of time to those completing questionnaires and increase the usefulness of the data by making more child sexual abuse related training information available to more people.
• Consultation participants recommended content and methods helpful in mobilizing the church to address the sexual abuse of children, and means for overcoming resistance in the church.

Participants used a significant portion of their time learning about The Asha Forum and progress achieved at forum meetings at the 2nd World Congress Against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children - Yokohama 2001, as well as the 1st International Asha Forum Consultation - Holland 2002, The Asha Advisory Team, The Asha Associates Declaration and the forum working groups listed below.

Church Mobilization
Facilitator: Carlos Pinto, Ecuador, HCJB World Radio- Latin America, Division of Education Director.
Function: Informing, motivating and offering next steps to local churches world-wide through means well integrated with the rest of the forum. The first objective is to develop an introductory video and users manual.

Asha Forum Development
Facilitator: Beverly Allison, Our Little Roses, CEO
Function: Promoting The Asha Forum, identifying key human and financial resource needs and working to meet those needs with the help of forum participants.

Training
Facilitators: Silas West - Nepal, Word Made Flesh, Nepal field co-director/south Asia regional coordinator & Joni Middleton, India, Project Rescue (AOG-USA), Training & Network Consultant
Function: 1) Identifying trainers and trainees, and brokering CSE related training effectively between those who need it and those who can offer training, 2) Helping identify and make resources more available to those working in the CSE field through manuals, books, internet and other resources.

More

In addition to much relationship building and informal collaboration, participants decided to focus on two objectives:

1) Training: They desired to develop categories and questions for a questionnaire that would be used to gather the training related information they each needed in order to better equip their workers. This collaboration will prevent duplication of information gathering, decrease the cost of time to those completing questionnaires and increase the usefulness of the data by making more training information available to more people. The raw information desired is listed below. The Training Working Group can now rework these questions into an effective questionnaire and then begin gathering and processing the replies.

2) Church Mobilization: Participants also worked to assist the Church Mobilization Working Group by together discovering and recommending content and methods that would be helpful in mobilizing the church. They also recommended means for overcoming resistance from the church in addressing the sexual abuse of children. These creative and practical ideas can now help guide the Church Mobilization Working Group and others working to help equip the church for action.

Cirencester 2005  Chiang Mai 2005  KL 2004  DC 2003  Zwolle 2002  Yokohama 2001