National Catholic Reporter: Winrock CEO Shares Optimism at USAID’s “Critical Conversation on World Day Against Trafficking In Persons”
On World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, Winrock President and CEO Rodney Ferguson joined USAID Administrator Mark Green, US Ambassador John Richmond and Ludy Green, agency lead for counter trafficking at USAID, to discuss efforts to end human trafficking. Ferguson expressed optimism that USAID, Winrock and partners can end human trafficking.
National Catholic Reporter was there to cover the event, which was organized by USAID’s Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiatives and USAID’s Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights and Governance.
“Panelist Rodney Ferguson, president and CEO of Winrock International, an international development organization, said he does not often get discouraged by the overwhelming issue of human trafficking but instead uses the example of William Wilberforce, who worked for 54 years in the 18th and 19th centuries to abolish the slave trade in England, as inspiration for what is possible.
“It takes a long time,” Ferguson said. “It’s taken us a long time to fight some of the scourges of this country, but we did it, and we succeeded, and we’ll succeed on this one, too. Technology, access to information, artificial intelligence — all of these frontier technologies will be harnessed. And there will be a day when business, transnational interactions and diplomacy will be transparent to the point that it will be increasingly difficult and someday impossible to hold other people in physical or psychological or economic bondage.”
Ferguson said faith groups bring a more explicit “moral imperative” to the anti-trafficking cause as well as powerful “moral networks” of people.