Anti-slavery activist Mei-Mei Ellerman will speak at a film presentation in Acton on March 1. The event is sponsored by the League of Women Voters-Acton Area.
Feb 27, 2012
Acton, Mass. —It all began with a newspaper article, about an alleged ring of prostitution in Providence.
Derek Ellerman, then a senior at Brown University, was horrified by reports that police had found young Asian women conscripted into sexual servitude.
With fellow student Katherine Chon, he co-founded The Polaris Project, inspired by the northern star escaped slaves in 19th century U.S. used to guide their way to freedom.
Ellerman’s mother, Mei-Mei Ellerman, chairman and a founding member of The Polaris Project’s board of directors, is a guest speaker at a screening of the documentary, “Not My Life.”
The film explores the modern-way phenomenon of human trafficking and modern slavery.
She recently spoke about the organization’s efforts to combat these forms of abuse.
The screening and talk takes place at Acton Town Hall Thursday, March 1 and is sponsored by the League of Women Voters-Acton Area.
Please tell me about The Polaris Project and its mission, and how you got involved.
Polaris Project was co-founded in 2002 by Derek Ellerman -- my son-- and Katherine Chon, during their senior year at Brown University.
They came across a newspaper article that described the horrific conditions of a brothel, disguised as a massage parlor, close to their apartments in Providence. When the police raided the premises, they discovered six young Asian women with cigarette burns on their arms, forced to sleep on the bare concrete floor, and held in a situation of debt bondage, "like slaves" according to the investigating officer.
Shocked and outraged to learn that slavery existed in modern-day America, the two students took action….thus Polaris Project was born, named after the North Star which had once led escaping slaves to freedom.
Today, Polaris has a staff of 45, with headquarters in Washington, D.C., and offices in New Jersey and Tokyo. Polaris' original goal, "a world without slavery" continues to drive its comprehensive approach to combating one of the worst forms of human rights abuse and the second largest and most lucrative criminal industry in this century.
Polaris Project's flagship program is the National Human Trafficking Hotline and Resource Center, awarded by the Dept. of Health and Human Services in 2008. In 2011 the NHTRC took in and processed over 19,000 calls.
I became involved from the very first. One day my son Derek called me to announce that he was dropping his honors thesis in cognitive neuroscience to write up a business plan for an NGO start up to fight modern-day slavery.
Just hearing the bare bones of what he and Katherine had discovered and what they proposed to do, I was hooked. Working to raise awareness of modern-day slavery, fundraising for Polaris Project and helping them strategize for systemic social change, have been my top priority and unmitigated passion for the past 10 years.
You are presenting the film, "Not My Life," about human trafficking and modern day slavery and bondage. Please explain what topics the film covers.
Filmed on five continents over the period of four years, "Not My Life," a powerful and visually beautiful
documentary -- written and produced by Oscar nominee Robert Bilheimer, and narrated by Glenn Close -- covers the pandemic of human trafficking of children worldwide, in forced labor and in commercial sexual exploitation.
In the words of the narration, it "depicts the unspeakable practices of a multi-billion dollar global industry whose profits are built on the backs and in the beds of our planet's youth."
The face of child slavery in our times is told through stories of the fishing boys in Ghana on Lake Volta, enforced beggars in the streets of Senegal, children swarming over landfills in India, commercially and sexually exploited girls in Nepal, India, at truck stops in the U.S., child soldiers in Northern Uganda, just to mention a few. The film also highlights the indefatigable work and commitment of modern day abolitionists.
It is commonly said that there are more people in bondage nowadays than during the African-American slave trade. What does this comparison actually mean, and how can statistics be verified and tracked reliably?
The average figure quoted over and over, is that today 27 million people live in conditions of abject slavery across the globe. The source of this figure comes from Kevin Bales of Free the Slaves. In reality, the number is most probably far greater but there is no recent documented data.
Let it suffice to say that approximately 800,000 individuals are trafficked internationally across borders, 80 percent of which are women, and of these, 50 percent children.
Slavery exists in every single country in the world, including the United States where approximately 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked into the country, whereas the greatest numbers are domestic victims.
Taking into account just the children, between 100,000 and 200,000 US-born minors are at high risk of being forced into commercial sexual exploitation, every single year. Some of these figures are calculated on the basis of data from the National Runnaway Switchboard.
The truth is that activists are so stretched to simply identify, rescue and provide an opportunity for a new life for victims that there are only a few ongoing data collection efforts, some focused on the demand [especially of the so-called 'Johns" whom I consider predators] others on the victims.
What documented forms do trafficking and slavery take in the U.S.?
For starters, I think that it is essential to define human trafficking, which is synonymous with modern-day slavery. "Human trafficking is a market driven criminal industry that is based on the principals of supply and demand."
Trafficking occurs when force, fraud or coercion is used to keep an individual in a situation of exploitation or when a child under the age of 18 has been lured into commercial sex.
Contrary to the common assumption, no "movement" or transportation across borders is a necessary condition.
One can be trafficked in one's own home- for example, a child can be "rented" out by a parent to service men for pay.
Slavery is present in so many different facets of our society that is like a gigantic octopus with innumerable arms. Just to list the most common forms for sex trafficking: commercial sexual exploitation, including street prostitution, online escort services, residential brothels or massage parlors, nail salons, child and adult pornography.
Labor trafficking is found in small "mom and pop" operations, domestic servitude situations, as well as large farms, factories, construction industry and corporations. Other forms occur in fraudulent adoptions, bride trafficking, and organ trafficking.
What are some measures on the legislative front aimed at combating this problem; secondly, what can the average person to do help in response to the problem?
Polaris Project has been instrumental in drafting and passing both state and federal laws to better protect victims of human trafficking and to hold traffickers accountable.
Members of Polaris have testified in Congress and lobbied for stronger laws, for ensuring that U.S. victims are entitled to the same protection and services as foreign nationals. Polaris has played a significant role in the reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, in 2003, 2005, 2008 and 2011.
It has also worked with individual states so that at present, only two lack some form of anti-trafficking legislation.
The first thing the average person can do to help in the fight against human trafficking is to learn the NHTR hotline number, 1-888-3737-888 and tell family, friends and colleagues about the hotline and the Polaris website.
Visiting the website, http://www.PolarisProject.org, is the fastest and easiest way to educate yourself on the complexities of human trafficking and by going to the TAKE ACTION link, learn in what ways you can make
a significant difference.
Certainly, step one is to make a contribution to help sustain Polaris' herculean efforts to create a world without slavery.
For Polaris' 10th anniversary, I have pledged to personally raise $300,000 for the National Human Trafficking Hotline by Dec. 31.Here is my link: https://org2.democracyinaction.org.
It all began with a newspaper article, about an alleged ring of prostitution in Providence.
Derek Ellerman, then a senior at Brown University, was horrified by reports that police had found young Asian women conscripted into sexual servitude.
With fellow student Katherine Chon, he co-founded The Polaris Project, inspired by the northern star escaped slaves in 19th century U.S. used to guide their way to freedom.
Ellerman’s mother, Mei-Mei Ellerman, chairman and a founding member of The Polaris Project’s board of directors, is a guest speaker at a screening of the documentary, “Not My Life.”
The film explores the modern-way phenomenon of human trafficking and modern slavery.
She recently spoke about the organization’s efforts to combat these forms of abuse.
The screening and talk takes place at Acton Town Hall Thursday, March 1 and is sponsored by the League of Women Voters-Acton Area.
Please tell me about The Polaris Project and its mission, and how you got involved.
Polaris Project was co-founded in 2002 by Derek Ellerman -- my son-- and Katherine Chon, during their senior year at Brown University.
They came across a newspaper article that described the horrific conditions of a brothel, disguised as a massage parlor, close to their apartments in Providence. When the police raided the premises, they discovered six young Asian women with cigarette burns on their arms, forced to sleep on the bare concrete floor, and held in a situation of debt bondage, "like slaves" according to the investigating officer.
Shocked and outraged to learn that slavery existed in modern-day America, the two students took action….thus Polaris Project was born, named after the North Star which had once led escaping slaves to freedom.
Today, Polaris has a staff of 45, with headquarters in Washington, D.C., and offices in New Jersey and Tokyo. Polaris' original goal, "a world without slavery" continues to drive its comprehensive approach to combating one of the worst forms of human rights abuse and the second largest and most lucrative criminal industry in this century.
Polaris Project's flagship program is the National Human Trafficking Hotline and Resource Center, awarded by the Dept. of Health and Human Services in 2008. In 2011 the NHTRC took in and processed over 19,000 calls.
I became involved from the very first. One day my son Derek called me to announce that he was dropping his honors thesis in cognitive neuroscience to write up a business plan for an NGO start up to fight modern-day slavery.
Just hearing the bare bones of what he and Katherine had discovered and what they proposed to do, I was hooked. Working to raise awareness of modern-day slavery, fundraising for Polaris Project and helping them strategize for systemic social change, have been my top priority and unmitigated passion for the past 10 years.
You are presenting the film, "Not My Life," about human trafficking and modern day slavery and bondage. Please explain what topics the film covers.
Filmed on five continents over the period of four years, "Not My Life," a powerful and visually beautiful
documentary -- written and produced by Oscar nominee Robert Bilheimer, and narrated by Glenn Close -- covers the pandemic of human trafficking of children worldwide, in forced labor and in commercial sexual exploitation.
In the words of the narration, it "depicts the unspeakable practices of a multi-billion dollar global industry whose profits are built on the backs and in the beds of our planet's youth."
The face of child slavery in our times is told through stories of the fishing boys in Ghana on Lake Volta, enforced beggars in the streets of Senegal, children swarming over landfills in India, commercially and sexually exploited girls in Nepal, India, at truck stops in the U.S., child soldiers in Northern Uganda, just to mention a few. The film also highlights the indefatigable work and commitment of modern day abolitionists.
It is commonly said that there are more people in bondage nowadays than during the African-American slave trade. What does this comparison actually mean, and how can statistics be verified and tracked reliably?
The average figure quoted over and over, is that today 27 million people live in conditions of abject slavery across the globe. The source of this figure comes from Kevin Bales of Free the Slaves. In reality, the number is most probably far greater but there is no recent documented data.
Let it suffice to say that approximately 800,000 individuals are trafficked internationally across borders, 80 percent of which are women, and of these, 50 percent children.
Slavery exists in every single country in the world, including the United States where approximately 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked into the country, whereas the greatest numbers are domestic victims.
Taking into account just the children, between 100,000 and 200,000 US-born minors are at high risk of being forced into commercial sexual exploitation, every single year. Some of these figures are calculated on the basis of data from the National Runnaway Switchboard.
The truth is that activists are so stretched to simply identify, rescue and provide an opportunity for a new life for victims that there are only a few ongoing data collection efforts, some focused on the demand [especially of the so-called 'Johns" whom I consider predators] others on the victims.
What documented forms do trafficking and slavery take in the U.S.?
For starters, I think that it is essential to define human trafficking, which is synonymous with modern-day slavery. "Human trafficking is a market driven criminal industry that is based on the principals of supply and demand."
Trafficking occurs when force, fraud or coercion is used to keep an individual in a situation of exploitation or when a child under the age of 18 has been lured into commercial sex.
Contrary to the common assumption, no "movement" or transportation across borders is a necessary condition.
One can be trafficked in one's own home- for example, a child can be "rented" out by a parent to service men for pay.
Slavery is present in so many different facets of our society that is like a gigantic octopus with innumerable arms. Just to list the most common forms for sex trafficking: commercial sexual exploitation, including street prostitution, online escort services, residential brothels or massage parlors, nail salons, child and adult pornography.
Labor trafficking is found in small "mom and pop" operations, domestic servitude situations, as well as large farms, factories, construction industry and corporations. Other forms occur in fraudulent adoptions, bride trafficking, and organ trafficking.
What are some measures on the legislative front aimed at combating this problem; secondly, what can the average person to do help in response to the problem?
Polaris Project has been instrumental in drafting and passing both state and federal laws to better protect victims of human trafficking and to hold traffickers accountable.
Members of Polaris have testified in Congress and lobbied for stronger laws, for ensuring that U.S. victims are entitled to the same protection and services as foreign nationals. Polaris has played a significant role in the reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, in 2003, 2005, 2008 and 2011.
It has also worked with individual states so that at present, only two lack some form of anti-trafficking legislation.
The first thing the average person can do to help in the fight against human trafficking is to learn the NHTR hotline number, 1-888-3737-888 and tell family, friends and colleagues about the hotline and the Polaris website.
Visiting the website, http://www.PolarisProject.org, is the fastest and easiest way to educate yourself on the complexities of human trafficking and by going to the TAKE ACTION link, learn in what ways you can make
a significant difference.
Certainly, step one is to make a contribution to help sustain Polaris' herculean efforts to create a world without slavery.
For Polaris' 10th anniversary, I have pledged to personally raise $300,000 for the National Human Trafficking Hotline by Dec. 31.
Here is my link: https://org2.democracyinaction.org.
