January was Human Trafficking Prevention Month, a designation of heartbreaking relevance to my home state of California. Not only does it remain one of the nation’s leading hubs for sex and labor trafficking; the state is also home to a host of non-profit organizations who fight the crimes of sex and labor slavery year-round.
Map showing locations of human trafficking cases in 2017, as tracked by anti-trafficking organization Polaris.
While the Golden State has long been a center for this crime because of its many points of entry and its strong economy, what’s not so well known is that it’s also pioneered efforts to combat it, with a long history of fighting the exploitation of girls and women. The San Francisco Bay Area in particular played an historic role in one of the earliest anti-trafficking efforts in the country.
Nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, a group led by women decided to set up a refuge in San Francisco for girls and young women who’d been trafficked from China and elsewhere. Calling it slavery, they went on to raise the profile of human trafficking, attracting news coverage, testifying in front of legislators, and helping to bring about an early anti-trafficking law.
Their crusade started in the 1870s when the women bought a house on the edge of San Francisco’s Chinatown. First called the Occidental Board’s Presbyterian Mission House, the structure was destroyed during the 1906 earthquake and fire. Rebuilt, it stands in the same spot on Sacramento Street today. It is now known as Cameron House, named after its long-serving superintendent, Donaldina Cameron. The organization is primarily a social services agency, but it still occasionally helps trafficking survivors.
From the 1870s to the 1930s, thousands of girls and young women passed through the home’s doors and found their freedom. Cameron and her many Chinese colleagues at the home helped draw public attention to the issue of girls and women being forced into labor or sex slavery along the West Coast, from Vancouver to San Diego.
The stories of the women who fought and escaped slavery at the turn of the twentieth century is the subject of my new book, The White Devil’s Daughters, which will be published on May 16th by Alfred A. Knopf.
Today, organizations such as the Bay Area Anti-Trafficking Coalition, Not for Sale, The Freedom Story, the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, the Pacific Links Foundation, the Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking (CAST) and Saving Innocence carry on Donaldina Cameron’s fight against trafficking. These leading non-profits in today’s fight against human trafficking are the heirs to Victorian-era women in shirtwaists and corsets, who began waging this battle long ago.