The Alliance to End Human Trafficking 2026 Conference:
A Beacon of Light

Sister Marilyn McGoldrick, CSJ, and sisters representing five congregations of women religious and the Anti-Human Trafficking Coalition, led a panel entitled “From Shadow to Light,” sharing insights they had learned over the past eighteen years working to raise awareness about this form of modern day slavery.

The Alliance to End Human Trafficking 2026 Conference brought together approximately two hundred people, each and every one of them passionate and eager to bring change. Sister Marilyn McGoldrick, CSJ, and sisters representing five congregations of women religious and the Anti-Human Trafficking Coalition, led a panel entitled “From Shadow to Light,” sharing insights they had learned over the past eighteen years working to raise awareness about this form of modern day slavery. This group of sisters and their Congregations were also responsible for establishing the first safe house in New England for women transitioning from victims to survivors of human trafficking. In the present day, they collaborate with the FBI, the Attorney General’s Office, Homeland Security and other agencies to distribute Bags of Love, as well as with survivor mentors, women who have endured human trafficking, survived, and then become beacons of light and wisdom to people learning how to heal from this unspeakably awful experience.

Sister Marilyn shares that, from the very beginning, they were well aware that they knew little of the trauma and experiences these survivors went through – and so they chose to collaborate and support these survivor mentors and social workers and further enable their efforts in guiding these survivors to not only an emotionally healed recovery, but to a financial recovery as well.

“None of the items that go into the bags are used,” Sister Marilyn says, “because the last thing we want these women to think is that they themselves are used, and only deserving of thrifted items. No, they deserve that which enables them to enter the process of healing realizing that they are more than what has happened to them.”

At the conference, sisters, laypeople, young and old – all came together to increase their understanding of human trafficking, the risk factors, and the new obstacles that come with artificial intelligence. Sister Marilyn shares that now, a human trafficker can use bots to reach hundreds of potential victims at once. Human trafficking, once a nasty undercurrent in America, could grow into something even more threatening, possibly an epidemic. Already, law enforcement struggles with tracking digital platforms used to recruit vulnerable people.

Greg Boyle, the keynote speaker at the event, brought some hope. Much of the information he shared was centered around the question: how can we help people heal? Father Boyle founded Home Boy Industries circa 1988, and from the very beginning, his work centered around giving gang members purposeful work, which, in turn, gave them new hope, and a new way of being in community with one another.

One element that deeply resonated with Sister Marilyn was how, each and every person present at the conference possessed a deep commitment to prevent and eradicate human trafficking. So often, the victim is the one criminalized. They’re the ones arrested on drug charges, the ones who end up spending time in prison. However, as more people join this growing community of people knowledgeable of the realities of human trafficking, hopefully, this reality will shift.