[Guest post from my friend Charles Powell, founder of Mercy Movement and coauthor of Not in My Town.]

In your town you might have spas or massage parlors that promise hours like 10 a. m. to 2 a. m.  Or they advertise the women that work there using their body measurements.  Or they tout their services are for men only. Or they promote the fact that every month or so they have a completely new female staff. If you didn’t know already, these establishments are not legitimate day spas or massage establishments. They are fronts for exploitation. When you start to look around, you’ll probably be surprised how many of these places there are in your town and how boldly they advertise.

Here’s what you can do now where you live:

1. Start a petition asking any publication these nefarious operations use for advertising to cease publishing their ads. It’s not a First Amendment issue; it is a human rights issue. Demand that they stop.
2. Protest against any billboard company that sells their advertising space for these illicit establishments.
3. Ask local real estate companies who lease commercial property throughout your city to sign a pledge not to lease property to such illicit businesses. Ask those who currently do so to seek to cancel the leases of these operations as soon as possible.

Obey the law in all your efforts and get started.

Not In My Town from New Hope Publishers on Vimeo.

Let us know what you’re doing by contacting the Mercy Movement. The Mercy Movement is dedicated to seeking solutions to humanitarian crises as they occur within the United States and internationally. We seek solutions through action-oriented research and investigation, education, and nonviolent direct intervention when it is deemed necessary. We are a grassroots movement, and I’d love to hear from you.

Charles J. Powell is an author, adventurer, abolitionist, and civil rights activist whose real life reads like a best-selling thriller novel, from encounters with Soviet spies at the end of the cold war to his work as a bodyguard for royalty to living undercover in the War on Drugs. Powell appears on television, speaks at conferences, and writes for numerous publications on a variety of topics from human trafficking to postmodernism to terrorism. He is the coauthor of Not In My Town. For contact information for Mercy Movement, go to http://mercymovement.com/connect/.

Originally posted at NewHopeDigital.