More on the One Girl initiative

As many as 20,000 Nepalese girls are trafficked to India every year, according to Siddharth Kara’s 2008 book, “Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery.”

They’re taken across the border, often through the lie of good jobs on the other side. The average age is 14.

Nepali females are desired for their beauty and innocence, says Paul Yates of Lincoln, who began the One Girl prayer/fundraising initiative. Their “relentless” poverty makes them vulnerable.

Yates works for Tiny Hands International, a Lincoln-based Christian group that supports orphanages and homes for the poor in Nepal, India and Bangladesh. Princess Home in Kathmandu is for girls and women who are vulnerable to the sex trafficking industry, or those rescued from it.

To learn more about Tiny Hands and its One Girl bracelet/prayer initiative, go to www.OneGirlTHI.org.

Today is the final day of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s first conference on human trafficking. Organizers hope to find ways to raise awareness of slavery worldwide.