Shared Hope International Information

Shared Hope International strives to prevent the conditions that foster sex trafficking, restore victims of sex slavery, and bring justice to vulnerable women and children. We envision a world passionately opposed to sex trafficking and a community committed to restoring survivors to lives of purpose, value and choice – one life at a time. In 1998, while still a member of the U.S. Congress, Linda Smith traveled to Falkland Road in Mumbai, India—one of the worst brothel districts in the world. The hopeless faces of desperate women and children forced into prostitution compelled Linda to found Shared Hope International. SHI was established to support shelter and service creation for sex trafficking survivors using a comprehensive model for restoration. Today, Shared Hope works to Prevent sex trafficking through training, including our nationally renowned JuST Conference, and our volunteer training program, Ambassadors of Hope. Shared Hope's Restoration initiatives support partners in 4 countries who work to serve and empower survivors of sex trafficking. And finally, Shared Hope is committed to Bringing Justice to perpetrators of sex trafficking, and to get justice for survivors. Shared Hope regularly advocates at the state and federal level for strong laws to protect victims of child sex trafficking and hold perpetrators accountable. SHI's Justice initiatives include the Protected Innocence Challenge, a yearly report card and legal analyses, examining the strength of each state's laws to fight child sex trafficking, and the Stop the inJuSTice Campaign, designed to engage the public & lawmakers in improving our laws to address domestic minor sex trafficking.