On Sunday, October 26th, I attended a speech from Sister Mary Ellen O’Boyle at St. Francis Xavier High School. Sister Mary Ellen O’Boyle has been working to fight the problem of Human Trafficking for 10 years, and has made a great impact. There are only 2,173 beds available for Sexual Trafficking Survivors in the United States, and Sister Mary Ellen O’Boyle provides 5 of those beds at an undisclosed location. She does not share the address in order to protect the victims who she helps. 5 beds make up .23% of those 2,173 beds, which may not sound like much, but the Polaris Project, an organization that works toward ending human trafficking, estimates that 1 million young women are trafficked each year in the United States alone. Sister Mary Ellen O’Boyle helps the survivors by giving those she can a bed in her safe house for a year before she takes in a new group of survivors. She told me that if I see something suspicious, I should not call the police, but call the Human Trafficking Hotline (8883737888). She also told me that in our lifetimes, we have crossed paths with a victim of sexual trafficking at least once. This bothered me because I could have helped the victim if I had known.