Tuesday, June 2, 2009

About The Author: Aaron Cohen

Aaron Cohen is a human rights activist who has established a modern-day Jubilee movement to free slaves and forgive debts around the world. Media stories have lauded his work finding and retrieving victims of human trafficking and have called him a "Slave Hunter." On his missions in the U.S., Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Sudan, Ecuador, Columbia, Cambodia, Thailand and in the junta-ruled Myanmar (formerly Burma), Cohen worked undercover and assessed the phenomenon of slavery from the inside. He was recently named by the World War II Memorial Foundation, the Immortal Chaplains, as the recipient of their 2008 Prize for Humanity for "risking all to save others." He was also honored with a US Congressional Certificate of Merit for his public service.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Author, Aaron Cohen, "Slave Hunter"



This incredible odyssey follows Aaron Cohen from his California rock-star life in the company of legendary musicians all the way to the war zones, refugee camps, and brothels of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East—as he takes on treacherous rescue missions in search of modern-day slaves, and lays bare the secrets behind trafficking networks. Aaron Cohen’s long years of drug addiction and late-night parties as onetime best friend, business and artistic partner to Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell put him on the path to a spiritual discovery that has both transformed and endangered his life, leading Cohen into the shantytowns of Cambodia and the hidden brothels of Ecuador, across the sweltering savannahs of Sudan, up to the Dalai Lama’s Himalayan retreat, through the unforgiving jungles of Burma and the deserts of Iraq. At a time when more people than ever before are enslaved somewhere on the planet, Aaron Cohen is a slave hunter—working to find and free human beings from various forms of bondage. People are more profitable and easier to hide than the guns, drugs, and precious gems that are moved along with them—making the flesh trade the world’s fastest-growing and most deadly illegal enterprise. Unconfined by diplomatic restrictions or political agendas, Cohen has been a unique asset to government agencies, think tanks, and antislavery organizations alike. He navigates his way skillfully through the territory of pimps and drug lords—an all-too-familiar realm of substance abuse, oversized egos, and changing rules. Working alone and undercover, posing as a sex tourist, he slips into brothels, urged by madams to select from a lineup of women and girls as young as six. Sometimes he can free sex slaves from their captors, but more often than not, he is forced to leave them behind, taking back only the evidence he collects in the hope that it will eventually lead to their rescue. While struggling to make ends meet on a negligible salary, Cohen faces temptations few could resist and witness atrocities that scar him and leave friends and family at an uncomprehending distance. And though many assignments have carried him away from his ailing and beloved father, his commitment to protect, assist and empower trafficking victims—and to disrupt the patterns that lead to all forms of enslavement—is unyielding. In a remarkable exposé of a sinister trade most of us will never experience firsthand, rocker-turned-antislavery activist Aaron Cohen’s prophetic memoir reveals the fast-paced, timely, unforgettable story of a real-life Slave Hunter.


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About Christine Buckley (co-author):

Christine Buckley was born in New York and is a graduate of Boston College. Her travels have taken her to five continents and taught her to herd sheep, cultivate rice, sail without a G.P.S., and edit a state-run newspaper with a straight face. Christine's LA Weekly cover story on Aaron Cohen was a 2008 LA Press Club and Maggie Award finalist. She has contributed to National Public Radio, The New York Times and Current TV, among others. Her reporting has also won her an Associated Press award. She's currently based in Paris. Recent work includes contributing interviews and editing to a collection of first-person stories compiled by John Bowe—to be published on Valentine’s Day 2010 under the title Dear: Americans Talk About Love. She is also working on a second book.