Nancy Springer is the assistant rector at St. Alban’s Episcopal Day School, and is the former assistant rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in McAllen, Texas. In her former position, she and her congregation worked with other border churches and government agencies to help unaccompanied children and other migrants in U.S. custody.

The Rev. Susan Copley is the rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Tarrytown, N.Y. She and members of her congregation visit unaccompanied migrant minors in U.S. custody at a nearby transitional home.

The Polaris Project, which works to eradicate human trafficking, collected data from 2007 through 2012, from people who contacted it for services or information, and issued this report. Among its findings: 41% of sex trafficking cases and 20% of labor trafficking cases referenced U.S. citizens as victims. The report and its graphics can be downloaded.

Greg Wark is the co-founder of Stop Child Trafficking Now, a countertrafficking organization that has teamed up with retired Navy SEALS to collect evidence against traffickers and to raise awareness about child sex trafficking. The organization works with churches around the country.

Read a July 7, 2014, New York Times story about a 2008 law that may be behind the rise in children crossing the U.S.-Mexican border.

Read an April 29, 2014, story in The Guardian about the fate of hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by the extremist group Boko Haram.

Read a Jan. 16, 2014, statement on human trafficking that’s signed by the Catholic bishops of New Jersey and posted by the Catholic Star Herald.

View an Aug. 16, 2013, segment from Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly about how a trend of aborting female fetuses has led to a shortage of young women in India. Some observers say the situation has resulted in human trafficking to meet men’s desire for brides.

Lisa Williams overcame years of childhood sexual abuse and other trauma and is now executive director of Living Water for Girls, a residential haven she founded in 2007 that provides education and therapeutic assistance to girls escaping prostitution and the street life. She lives in Georgia.