Largo, Florida - A raid of two Pinellas homes and a business may have connections to human trafficking. The early morning raids found 27 men and women living in cramped conditions.

If you have a scrap of progressive politics in your bones, it's no surprise to you that sexism hurts women. Like, duh. That's kind of the definition of the word. But we don't talk as much about how sexism hurts men.

"I was in the room playing with my cousin and they called us to come," Delan said. "They cut my cousin. I was very afraid. I was crying and crying. My mother is very fat; I knew if I could run she could not catch me, but she held me too strong. I could not get away.

A 19-year-old man — whose father won't hire a lawyer to defend him — has been in jail without trial for more than a year because he is gay.

I was checking out the FBI's crime numbers for my home state this morning. One that stood out was Forcible Rape. In the state of Florida in 2008 there have been 1,355 reported cases of forcible rape for that year.

Amnesty International has accused Tajikistan of failing to protect its women, saying nearly half are raped, beaten or abused by their families.

As violence against women in Pakistan continues to grow, every new incident is eerily reminiscent of an earlier event that was equally if not more shocking. Two reports from Punjab on Monday are a blot on society's collective conscience.