Dear Avaaz community,

This powerful appeal just came to us from one of our members:

"My daughter Oxana was a beautiful, wonderful girl, gifted in languages. She left our home when she was 20 to take her dream job as a translator in Europe. We were so happy for her. Three weeks later the police told us she died falling from a 5th story window, trying to escape men who fooled her with the job and forced her into a sex club. I died when she died. Now I live only to stop this from happening to other girls. Please, help me."

Oxana was killed by a brutal and growing global industry - the rape trade. A major part of this trade is girls taken in Russia and sent to Europe and the US where they face an awful future of routine rape and brutality.

We can stop this horror. A powerful new convention requires strong laws to stop the rape trade -- and Oxana's father Nikolai is appealing to Russian Prime Minister Putin to sign it. Putin cultivates a macho-man image -- we can persuade him by making this a chance for him to be seen as the protector of Russian women. Our goal is 1 million voices added to Nikolai's in the next few days to persuade Putin to act. Click below to sign, forward this email widely, and let's fight one family's horror with 1 million reasons for hope:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/russia_rape_trade_putin_7/?vl