Bernadette J. Brooten is the Kraft-Hiatt professor of Christian studies, women’s and gender studies, classical studies, and religious studies at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass. She is also the founder and director of the Brandeis Feminist Sexual Ethics Project. She is an expert in the history of sexuality in the Bible and is author of […]

Amanda Finger is executive director of the Laboratory to Combat Human Trafficking in Denver.

This epic is actually book six of the Mahabharata, but often stands on its own. It is told as a dialogue between Krishna and the soldier Arjuna on a battlefield before the fighting begins. It was composed about 200 B.C. and numerous online editions are available.

Melissa Farley is a clinical and research psychologist and directs the San Francisco-based Prostitution Research and Education project, which works to abolish prostitution and help prostitutes. She edited Prostitution, Trafficking and Traumatic Stress.

This is an epic tale of the adventures of the deity Rama who fights to free his love, Sita, from the hold of Ravan, the King of Ceylon. Sacred-Texts.com has an online translation by Ralph T.H. Griffith.

Claude d’Estrée is director of the Human Trafficking Center, the Center on Rights Development and the international human rights degree program at the University of Denver, where he is also a Buddhist chaplain.

These are mystical texts often written in the form of dialogues between deities and men. They were composed between 400 and 200 C.E.

Kay Buck is executive director of the Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking, a nonprofit that seeks to serve victims of trafficking. It is based in Los Angeles.

Melissa Broudo is a staff attorney at the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center in New York, where she focuses on the legal concerns, safety and rights of sex workers.