Modern times have witnessed some of the worst wars and conflicts. According to millennials, the world is in grave danger because of insecurity of life, economy, health and environment. Some of these issues have existed for a long time and the world is eager to find a solution for them. Some of such issues are: religious conflicts, corruption, lack of education, safety, lack of economic opportunity and employment. poverty, inequality and climate change.

What is human trafficking?

Under the major issue of ‘safety’, falls the sub-category human-trafficking. Human trafficking is the illegal practice of transporting people from one area to another, majorly for the purposes of forced labour or sexual exploitation. Notable people are coming forward to save the world from this menace. They put in their efforts to fight human trafficking or help the victims who have gone through the trauma. Such activists are known as ‘contemporary abolitionists’. Some of them are: Amina Titi Atiku-Abubakar, David Batstone. Susan Bissell, Nicolas Alipui, Katherine Chon, Derek Elerman, Durga Ghimire, Siddharth Kara, Vednita Carter, Timothy Ballard and many other. This article concentrates on differentiating between Amina Titi Atiku-Abubakar, Vednita Carter and Timothy Ballard.

Amina Titi Atiku-Abubakar versus Vednita Carter versus Timothy Ballard

Amina Titi Atiku-Abubakar

Amina Titi Atiku-Abubakar is an advocate of women and child rights. She is the wife of former vice-president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar. Amina founded WOTCLEF-Women Trafficking and Child Labour Eradication Foundation. Also, she initiated a bill that led to the establishment of NAPTIP-National Agency for Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons.

Vednita Carter

Vednita Carter is an American who works as an anti-sex trafficking activist, author. She is the executive director of “Breaking Free” organization which helps women escape prostitution.

Timothy Ballard

Timothy Tim Ballard is an author and activist. He organizes activities on the national and international level to stop child trafficking. He is the founder of Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R) and CEO of The Nazarene Fund.

Date of birth and nationality

Amina Titi Atiku-Abubakar was born on 29 May 1999 in a Christian home of Osun State and died on 29 May 2007. Her maiden name was Amina Titilayo Albert. She married Atiku Abubakar in 1971.

Vednita Carter was born in Twin Cities, Minnesota, U.S.

Education

Amina Titi Atiku-Abubakar’s primary and secondary education was completed at a missionary school owned by the Roman Catholic. She attended Kaduna Polytechnic after her marriage to Atiku Abubakar. Amina could speak English, Yoruba and Hausa languages.

Timothy Ballard grew up in California and attended Bingham Young University in Utah. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish and Political Science. Later, he had a Master of Arts degree in International Politics from the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Movement

Atiku Abubakar became the vice-president of Nigeria in 1999. So, Amina Titi Atiku-Abubakar got the opportunity to work for ending forced prostitution and other forms of human trafficking. She founded WOTCLEF and also sponsored a private bill for establishment of NAPTIP that would give strict punishment to traffickers. She advocated for human rights and welcomed as well as rehabilitated girls repatriated from different countries.

Vednita Carter was unable to afford college and responded to an ad looking for dancers in lieu of some money. She found out that it was actually an ad looking for strippers. She said that it was a “steppingstone to prostitution”. She worked in the industry for a year and later escaped. Vednita Carter began to work with women in prostitution in 1989 and became a program director. She founded Breaking Free that aimed to help women and girls exit prostitution. Breaking Free has helped over 6000 women since its inception in 1996.

In terms of his professional career, Timothy Ballard worked as a special agent for the Department of Homeland Security for over 10 years. He worked on the internet Crimes Against Children Task Force under the American government. Ballard left the government in 2013 and founded the non-profit organization O.U.R.-Operation Underground Railroad. Ballard works on the development of software and internet investigations to infiltrate file-share networks where the traffickers exchange child pornography. He has assisted in the training of various law enforcement officers in this regard. Timothy Ballard has briefed many world leaders on the issue of child sex trafficking like President Donald Trump.

Notable works

Amina Titi Atiku-Abubakar wrote the books ‘Educating the Nigerian Child’, ‘Empower Law to Fight Child Slavery’ and ‘Let us celebrate humanity: a collected speech on women’s right and human trafficking’.

Vednita Carter published her articles on anti-human trafficking views in Hastings Women’s Law Journal, the Michigan Journal of Gender and Law, the Journal of Trauma Practice. In 2003, Carter wrote a piece “Prostitution=Slavery” for the anthology Sisterhood Is Forever: The Women’s Anthology for a New Millennium.

Timothy Ballard is the author of some best-selling books. He has penned The Covenant: One Nation Under God and its sequel The Covenant, Lincoln and the War. In 2018, he published Slave Stealers: True Accounts of Slave Rescues-Then and Now. He also wrote The Lincoln Hypothesis and The Washington Hypothesis in 2016.

Award and honours

Amina Titi Atiku-Abubakar was awarded D’linga award in 2010. She also received Annual Nigerian Women’s Award.

Vednita Carter has been called “a leading service provider for exploited women and girls” by Francine Sherman and Francine Jacobs in their book Juvenile Justice:Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice. In 2010, Carter received Norma Hotaling Award. She was one of the six women to be honoured by the Women of Distinction award by Century College in 2012. In addition to this, CICA International University and Seminary awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity to Carter in 2015.

Timothy Ballard was appointed to the White House Public-Private Partnership Advisory Council to End Human Trafficking in 2019.

Conclusion

Almost every country is affected by trafficking. Men, women and children fall into the hands of human traffickers, in their own countries and abroad, every year. Traffickers use force, abduction, coercion, deception, abuse of power or vulnerability, or give payments to have control over the victim. The purpose is usually slavery, forced labour, sexual exploitation, prostitution etc. But, due to the efforts of United Nations’ UNODC-United National Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and some non-profit organizations, the traffickers are afraid to commit crimes as such. We, as humans, should pay attention to any harassing activity happening around us and report it to the police. This can be a small but strong help in fighting the giant of human trafficking.