PROTECT members Rouke and Moctar Aboubacar have seen more of the world's problems than most American teenagers.  With parents who work in international aid and development, the siblings have lived in both West Africa and Haiti, seeing firsthand the crushing effects of poverty and human exploitation on children.

Now Rouke and Moctar have started a new research and legislative project for Students PROTECT.  The students, who attend high school at the Lycee Francais in New York, spent two weeks this summer interning with PROTECT, researching child trafficking worldwide and what U.S. legislation can do to help.  They compiled information on the massive issue of trafficking, learned about how to track and read legislation, compiled lists of organizations fighting human trafficking and investigated needed laws.  They also learned a little about bureaucracy, as they waded into a labyrinth of federal agencies and nonprofit organizations.

Of special interest to the Aboubacars was the treatment of unaccompanied minors in the U.S.  Many of these children—victims of child trafficking—are treated abysmally while in U.S. custody.  The Feinstein-Brownback bill now in Congress would prohibit these children from being held in adult or juvenile prisons, take small steps toward legal representation in immigration proceedings and give them other basic protections.  Rouke and Moctar are particularly concerned that the legislation may not fund or guarantee counsel for unaccompanied minors facing deportation, and they plan to watch the progress of this legislation for PROTECT.

We hope that other members of Students PROTECT will join the child trafficking project and build upon the work of Rouke and Moctar Aboubacar.  According to Students PROTECT National Chair, Kelcie Longaker (University of Kansas), the organization will look into federal legislation in 2005 or 2006.