Building Awareness Against Human Trafficking
by
Deaf teachers create sign language books to educate vulnerable communities about the dangers of exploitation.
Deaf students in Latin America gathered for a book presentation at their local school. The story was new to them and frightening. It told of a young Deaf woman, drugged, kidnapped and abused. Tragically, this story was true and gave a name to this type of criminal activity—human trafficking.
This particular book, recently developed by regional Deaf leaders with the support of SIL, helps protect youth in these communities by increasing awareness around the issue of human trafficking and exploitation. Members of the Deaf community are especially vulnerable to human trafficking as limitations in communication leave many knowing little to nothing about the risks.
The problem begins with a communication gap. What information is available about sensitive topics—like human trafficking—does not usually include material in sign language. Many countries also lack interpreters to help disseminate information, even through general news outlets. This communication gap extends to families as well because Deaf children are often born to hearing parents who never learn a sign language.
In light of this, Deaf adults carry a strong sense of responsibility to build a resilient community around these young people, shielding them from harm and helping them gain access to opportunities not available to past generations. Their shared experience and familiarity with the culture uniquely equips these adults to communicate naturally within Deaf circles. So when human trafficking concerns began to arise, members of these communities felt an unignorable call to take action.
Sonia Shannon, a consultant from SIL’s Global Sign Languages Team, joined forces with teachers from three Deaf schools and a Deaf-run foundation in Honduras, Colombia, Guatemala and El Salvador to consider the question: How can local Deaf create and publish anti-trafficking material for their communities?
The answer—Bloom! SIL’s book-making software is easy to use, open source and free of charge. It includes features which allow users to create books in local sign language, and published books are available in a digital library for download or translation into additional languages.
A team from each country agreed to design and create one original book in their sign language. The topics focused on various aspects of human trafficking, such as La Trata de Personas, which looks at the different types of trafficking commonly found. They then decided to translate at least one book from another team’s sign language into their own. These eight books would serve as a foundation for a library of anti-trafficking resources for Latin American Deaf. Additionally, each team committed to giving two presentations of their book to groups in the local community, such as schools, churches and foundations for the Deaf.
Their work began in May 2023, and by August, seven of the eight books were completed and ready to share. The books received hundreds of views on Bloom within the first month. Social media has also played a part in sharing links to the material and giving members of the Deaf diaspora outside of Latin America an opportunity to access this resource. As they presented what they had made within the community, the response surprised them. Many people exclaimed that they were completely unaware of the issue and urged that educating more people in the community was a critical need. One member from the Colombia team described the community's response: “Everybody here wants to say ‘thank you’ [to] the team that’s doing all these books . . . They were really touched by this subject, and they want more information. Keep it coming!”
The Honduras team reported that “The students at the Christian school were very scared. They expressed that they had never learned about [human trafficking]; they had never seen this. They said that this was very important to learn and to be careful of the possible dangers.”
Several members intend to carry the message even further by sharing their material throughout other cities in their countries. And despite their full-time responsibilities as teachers and parents, each team continues to go above and beyond in their roles. Regardless of the challenges, the enthusiastic responses from the communities have encouraged the teams to persist in this crucial effort to raise awareness and keep their community safe.