The Sama Veda, or Veda of Holy Songs, third in the usual order of enumeration of the three Vedas, ranks next in sanctity and liturgical importance to the Rig Veda, or the Veda of Recited Praise. Its Sanhita, or metrical portion, consists chiefly of hymns to be chanted by the Udgatar priests at the performance […]

Kevin Bales is a sociologist and co-founder of Free the Slaves, a nonprofit and sister organization to the U.S. Anti-Slavery International. He has written articles about human trafficking, stating that it could be eliminated if governments would enforce their own anti-slavery laws, spend money on the effort and increase public awareness about the problem.

An ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns. It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts known as the Vedas. There are just over one thousand hymns in the Rig Veda, made up of more than ten thousand verses.

Margaret A. Farley is the Gilbert L. Stark professor emerita of Christian ethics at Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Conn. She is Catholic and has written widely about Christian sexual ethics.

Luis CdeBaca is ambassador-at-large for the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. He is a former prosecutor and received an award for his work as lead trial counsel in the largest slavery prosecution in U.S. history, in a case involving a garment factory in American Samoa.

Read a column about Diwali gift-giving by author Arthur Magida, posted at Beliefnet.com.

Read an Oct. 28, 2005, Associated Press article about Pope Benedict XVI condemning human trafficking for sex and calling for the humane treatment of women migrants.

Read a Dec. 15, 2005, Washington Post article about a focus on johns and pimps in the battle against prostitution.

Read a May 22, 2013, article in The Guardian about the Catholic Church’s fight against proposed budget cuts in the United Kingdom’s legal aid system. The church says the cuts would limit assistance for victims of human trafficking.