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Dateline: 11/20/2009

GONZAGA UNIVERSITY NEWS RELEASE
Dale Goodwin, Director
Peter Tormey, Associate Director

GU Class Aims to Stop Sex Trafficking in S.E. Asia

Service-Learning Project for Professor Laura Brunell’s ‘Women in Comparative Societies’ Class 

Laura Brunell, associate professor of political science. Photo by Jennifer Raudebaugh
Laura Brunell, associate professor of political science. Photo by Jennifer Faudebaugh
Students of Gonzaga University political science Associate Professor Laura Brunell's “Women in Comparative Societies” class have been selling bracelets and collecting donations for a service-learning project aiming to help stop sex trafficking women and girls in Southeast Asia.

The project showed the film, “Not for Sale,” last night (Thursday) in the Gonzaga Law School’s Barbieri Courtroom. Accompanying the film was an interactive passport installation in the Law School foyer, staffed by students and Gonzaga alumna Katie Stone Botezatu, who served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Moldova. During the interactive session, participants received a passport with a woman’s identity. They then explored “the world” from table to table, finding out what the woman’s status is in various countries.

Azra Grudic, the anti-trafficking coordinator at Lutheran Community Services in Spokane, staffed the U.S. table Thursday night and delivered a highly informative presentation to Brunell’s class a few weeks ago.

Through the nongovernmental organization the Somaly Mam Foundation, the purchase of a $2 navy blue bracelet with the words “Stop Trafficking” will help rehabilitate and retrain women and girls who escape the sex-trade in Cambodia. The funds also will be used to address the root causes of sex trafficking by purchasing goods made by women entrepreneurs and artists, through GlobalGirlfriend.com to support themselves and their children.

The jewelry purchased will be donated to the women at Women’s Hearth in Spokane, so they can have something to give loved ones this Christmas. The Gonzaga project will continue into 2010, said Brunell, adding there is some interest in forming an anti-trafficking organization on campus. Discussions are planned to explore ways faculty may wish to collaborate in anti-trafficking teaching and service work.|

For more information, contact Laura Brunell, associate professor of political science at Gonzaga, at (509) 313-6679 or via e-mail.