The Blog

By Cari Stein, Executive Producer

It may surprise many Americans that human trafficking happens right here in the United States.  In fact, victims are not only from foreign countries they include Americans.  Trafficking is estimated to be a 32-Billion dollar a year “industry” exploiting women, children, boys and men for sexual slavery as well as forced labor.

This week, To the Contrary visited Homeland Security headquarters to speak with Secretary Janet Napolitano about trafficking.  In an interview with TTC host Bonnie Erbe, Secretary Napolitano outlined a DHS campaign to bring this hidden crime out of the shadows.   The Blue Campaign aims to raise the level of awareness of the general public so regular citizens can recognize the signs of human trafficking and report it to authorities.  The campaign’s new website is https://www.dhs.gov/blue-campaign/blue-campaign

By Bonnie Erbe

Kuala Lumpur was the site of an incredibly important global conference last month on maternal and child health care. The confab drew the participation of more than 4,500 attendees including high-level United Nations officials, government leaders, renowned philanthropists and NGO chiefs. There was even a sprinkling of celebrities such as actress Mandy Moore, Chelsea Clinton and Barbara Bush (daughter, not mother of George W. Bush.)

Executive Producer Cari Stein met with Melinda Gates, of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation at the 2013 Women Deliver Global Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Please watch for Cari's half hour documentary which includes an interview with Ms. Gates later this summer. 

Just about everything about Pope Francis rings true. A mere two months into his papacy he has shed many of the Church's gaudy and inapt symbols of materialism and returned the philosophical focus of the Church to where Jesus Christ would have wanted it to be: on the poor. Banished to the closets of the Vatican are his predecessors' ornate Renaissance vestments along with an assortment of un-Christ-like ostentatious adornments including a solid gold crucifix.

By Katie Snider, Associate Producer

Janet Napolitano, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, discussed her career in politics, the country’s safety, and what it’s like to run the show in a male dominated organization at the Women of Washington event Thursday.  Napolitano was candid about the protection of U.S. citizens just a month after the Boston Marathon Bombings.

“We have a much better understanding of what terrorism is. . . We’re still figuring out what causes someone to look at radical literature and then to carry out an act of terrorism. . . We have the capacity to respond and get a community back on its feet quickly . . . that didn’t exist 10 years ago.”