As Dan Emr sat in the Calvary Church listening to a young missionary couple talking about their efforts to help victims of the sex trafficking trade, he thought back to a question posed years earlier by his Upper Bucks Christian School history teacher.
"Had you been alive when slavery was legal, would you have done something to intervene?"
Emr's response back then: "Yes, I believe everyone deserves to be free." Years later, sitting in church and hearing of the slave horrors taking place today, he chose to act "to do something bigger."
The married father of two young children gave up his job two years ago to start Worthwhile Wear, an organization that rescues girls from forced prostitution and works to help them stop being victims.
The group targets highly trafficked areas, and offers victims the opportunity to overcome two primary factors at the root of sex trafficking: poverty and lack of education.
He said Worthwhile Wear creates vocational training centers where women rescued from the sex trade are taught to make things like jewelry, handbags and clothing, which are sold to benefit the women.
Using reverse engineering, Emr said, "we go beyond that, teaching them how to document, take pictures and do things they've never done."
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The women are offered a free education, a safe place to stay, and restorative programs geared toward encouraging personal growth and re-establishing their self-worth.
"Yes, I had a good job. I had my own office," he said. "But when you hear about human trafficking, you either do something about it at some level or pretend you never heard about it. I couldn't shake it."
Lauren Gozzard, a Perkasie neighbor of Dan and wife Stephanie Emr, was surprised when Dan gave up his job to start Worthwhile Wear. "We all thought, 'Wow, you guys are crazy.' But it's been really neat to watch them grow with something very important and very meaningful."
The United Nations crime-fighting office has said 2.4 million people are victims of human trafficking at any one time, and 80 percent of them are being exploited as sexual slaves, a $32-billion a year business.
Starting from nothing, Emr began his efforts in Asia where, he said, "this issue is the greatest and had the fewest barriers." He travels to India twice a year, three weeks at a time," said Stephanie Emr. "It's really hard on him, being away from the kids."
However, Dan Emr said there's a growing need for Worthwhile Wear locally and he has obtained a 150-acre property to build a facility to help those who have been "exploited, misused and lied to." He said Route 309 in Bucks and Montgomery counties offers "multiple locations" where women and girls are sold for sex.
Worthwhile Wear is working with the Bucks Coalition Against Trafficking, churches and other groups to help. The program is called "The Well." It will provide long-term care and housing to women through partnerships with other local agencies.
"We have a program, the staffing and property," Dan Emr said. "We just need the funding."
He added that he finds it ironic that 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slavery still exists in America.
"It's happening here in the land of the free and it happened under my nose and now what am I going to do about it," he said. "Either you do something or make a decision you're going to move on with your life. I'm going to do something at some level to get involved. That's what our country is for."
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Online: http://bit.ly/JeRxoJ
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Information from: The Intelligencer, http://www.theintell.com
