Clayton Kershaw helps victims of human trafficking in the Dominican Republic
During the offseason, the Kershaws — along with former major leaguer Adam LaRoche and his wife, Jennifer — traveled to Santo Domingo to meet with officials from the International Justice Mission (IJM), a faith-based organization that fights slavery and sex trafficking, particularly child exploitation. The group had an audience with Dominican Republic president Danilo Medina, visited the city’s red-light district with investigators, and spent an afternoon playing baseball with survivors of sex trafficking.
Child sex trafficking, which IJM describes as “a form of modern slavery in which someone coerces or deceives another person into commercial sex exploitation for profit,” remains a significant problem in the DR. According to IJM, nearly five million of the estimated 40 million enslaved children worldwide are believed to be the prey of sex traffickers. Tens of thousands of those victims are Dominican girls.
On their last day in the country, the LaRoches and Kershaws visited Lily House, a home for victims of sexual exploitation and their children where survivors receive therapy and vocational training. “This whole trip, I’ve just been thinking about our kids back home and how they get to have a safe place to call home at night,” Ellen Kershaw said. “It’s pretty heart-wrenching to be over here and to just want to do that for everybody else.”
LaRoche began working with IJM, which is based in Washington when he played for the Nationals. “Today we got to hear the story of a survivor,” Kershaw said. “To hear one story helps you keep going. If it’s one kid, then that’s a big difference.”
Sources:
- https://youtu.be/URFTWN90fc0
- https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/26525422/clayton-kershaw-mission-help-victims-human-trafficking-dominican-republic
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