Passover Project seeks South Florida participants to help combat human trafficking - Sun Sentinel:
Showing posts with label Free the Slaves. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Free the Slaves. Show all posts
Monday, April 4, 2016
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Slavery beyond the sex trade - TrustLaw
http://www.trust.org/trustlaw/news/slavery-beyond-the-sex-trade/
Wed, 28 Nov 2012 10:00 GMT
Wed, 28 Nov 2012 10:00 GMT
A 19-year-old trafficking victim from central Myanmar who, two years ago, managed to escape two brokers who promised a job in a nearby town but instead took her to a town in the far north and tried to get her to become a sex worker. October 12, 2012. REUTERS/Minzayar Oo
By Katie Nguyen
LONDON (TrustLaw) - In Haiti, it's the little girl who is kept home from school and forced to clean her sister's house or else be beaten with electric cables.
Thousands of miles away in India, it's the shy, young woman left at the mercy of an agent who finds her a job as a maid but takes her earnings. In Bahrain, it's the Filippino domestic worker who, abused and exploited by her employer, cannot leave.
Millions of people around the world today are trapped in slavery, like seven-year-old Wisline was in Haiti.
"My sister came to get me at my mother's house, saying she would put me in school but when I got to her house, she started making me work and cook for her and she began mistreating me," says Wisline, who now lives in a refuge with other former child slaves outside of Port-au-Prince.
Exactly how many people are enslaved is impossible to know.
Estimates range from 27 million, cited by advocacy group, Free the Slaves, to the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) figure of 20.9 million people - of which about 2.2 million are forced labourers of the state, for example, working in prisons.
While women and girls account for the greater share of 21st century slaves, coverage of their plight has been dominated by stories of sex trafficking and lurid tales of being forced to sell their bodies in brothels and on street corners.
Yet data from the ILO suggests that far more women and girls are victims of domestic servitude and other types of forced labour than they are of the sex trade.
Of the estimated 11.4 million women and girls in forced labour globally, around 4.4 million are subjected to sexual exploitation in foreign countries, according to the ILO.
That leaves some 7 million trapped in labour exploitation. Unlike sex trafficking, most of it is taking place in the victims' own countries.
DESPERATE FOR WORK
Although the ILO gives no breakdown, campaigners say forced labour involving women and girls includes everything from being enslaved in private homes as servants, cooks and nannies to working in factories, farms and textile mills, and even, according to some reports, nail bars and cannabis farms.
Another notable trend has been the trafficking of women into forced marriages in regions where men outnumber women. For example, 70 percent of the trafficking cases in Myanmar in 2011 involved local women being lured into neighbouring China - often on the pretext of finding work - only to be forced to marry Chinese men.
"Today you don't have to kidnap people, use violence to pull people into slavery," said Kevin Bales, co-founder of Free the Slaves. "There are so many people who are desperate for work ... that you just have to offer people a job."
Despite the scale of the problem and the suffering it causes, eradicating modern day slavery has proved elusive.
One of the hurdles is identifying victims.
Those in domestic servitude - whether migrant domestic workers or not - are less visible than in sex trafficking, which is one of the reasons why the sector has been overlooked, activists say.
So-called domestic slaves tend to be isolated and hidden from view, with abuses usually occurring behind closed doors.
DOMESTIC SERVITUDE
In the privacy of their own homes, employers are often able to get away with violations that amount to enslavement, activists say. It can start with them confiscating their maids' passports and identity documents or not paying them - and escalate to not feeding them, insulting them verbally and beating them.
"There are so many cases of adults and children being fed scraps, having to sleep under the dining room table, being at the beck and call of their bosses," said Anti-Slavery International spokeswoman Elizabeth Muggleton.
"With child domestic workers, they might just look like another member of the family. It takes a slightly keen eye to recognise that there's only one child who's carrying the shopping bags," she said, referring to "Cinderella-style" cases of children forced to look after other children, and being badly mistreated.
In recognition of their particular vulnerability, governments adopted ILO's Convention 189 to protect domestic workers last year in a boost for millions of exploited women. To date, three countries - Uruguay, the Philippines and Mauritius - have ratifed the treaty.
Yet at the same time, many countries like Britain and the majority of Arab states have tied work permits for domestic workers to a single employer.
It's a policy that exposes workers to the risk of forced labour because it leaves them with few alternatives but to stick it out with a potentially abusive employer, experts say.
The fight against slavery has been championed recently by the United States with what advocates say was a landmark speech by President Barack Obama in September.
Calling it "one of the great human rights causes of our time", Obama announced a string of initiatives to combat the problem including an executive order designed to strengthen U.S. efforts to stamp out slavery from federal contracts.
While giving credit to countries such as Brazil and the United States for taking the lead in addressing forced labour, Beate Andrees, head of ILO's special action programme to combat forced labour, said: "We don't have the critical masses yet."
"There are many leaders and governments who can deny (it) and don't want to address it, so we are still a long way from eliminating the problem," Andrees told TrustLaw in a telephone interview from Geneva.
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO END SLAVERY?
Besides political will, tackling corruption, pushing governments to enforce their anti-slavery laws and companies to scrutinise their supply chains would go a long way to ending slavery, experts say.
So would boosting the number of convictions for trafficking.
"The very numbers of identified victims or convicted traffickers remain very, very low," Silke Albert, a crime prevention expert for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told TrustLaw.
Last year, 946 trafficking cases were referred to the British authorities, yet only eight human trafficking convictions were secured in England and Wales.
"Trafficking is a very complex crime," UNODC's Albert said. "Many victims are for example in illegal situations. They have been brought in illegally or they have not been employed legally ... so they fear the police instead of turning to the police, and of course, they are badly controlled by their traffickers."
Women are both the victims of trafficking and the perpetrators, according to a UNODC report in 2009, which said female offenders had a more prominent role in present day slavery than in most other crimes.
It is unclear whether that is because women have been coerced into recruiting other women or because they can more easily approach and gain the trust of their victims.
What's certain is that women and girls will continue to suffer - and slavery will continue to thrive if its root causes are left unaddressed.
"The root causes of slavery are in social injustice, in discrimination, in poverty," Gulnara Shahinian, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, told TrustLaw. "Where all of these things are existing in a country, slavery will exist."
This article is part of a Thomson Reuters Foundation special report ontrafficking and modern day slavery.
Trafficking and modern day slavery will be high on the agenda at the Trust Women conference, Dec 4-5
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Trafficking and modern day slavery - TrustLaw
http://www.trust.org/trustlaw/news/slavery-beyond-the-sex-trade/
Wed, 28 Nov 2012 10:00 GMT
Wed, 28 Nov 2012 10:00 GMT
A 19-year-old trafficking victim from central Myanmar who, two years ago, managed to escape two brokers who promised a job in a nearby town but instead took her to a town in the far north and tried to get her to become a sex worker. October 12, 2012. REUTERS/Minzayar Oo
By Katie Nguyen
LONDON (TrustLaw) - In Haiti, it's the little girl who is kept home from school and forced to clean her sister's house or else be beaten with electric cables.
Thousands of miles away in India, it's the shy, young woman left at the mercy of an agent who finds her a job as a maid but takes her earnings. In Bahrain, it's the Filippino domestic worker who, abused and exploited by her employer, cannot leave.
Millions of people around the world today are trapped in slavery, like seven-year-old Wisline was in Haiti.
"My sister came to get me at my mother's house, saying she would put me in school but when I got to her house, she started making me work and cook for her and she began mistreating me," says Wisline, who now lives in a refuge with other former child slaves outside of Port-au-Prince.
Exactly how many people are enslaved is impossible to know.
Estimates range from 27 million, cited by advocacy group, Free the Slaves, to the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) figure of 20.9 million people - of which about 2.2 million are forced labourers of the state, for example, working in prisons.
While women and girls account for the greater share of 21st century slaves, coverage of their plight has been dominated by stories of sex trafficking and lurid tales of being forced to sell their bodies in brothels and on street corners.
Yet data from the ILO suggests that far more women and girls are victims of domestic servitude and other types of forced labour than they are of the sex trade.
Of the estimated 11.4 million women and girls in forced labour globally, around 4.4 million are subjected to sexual exploitation in foreign countries, according to the ILO.
That leaves some 7 million trapped in labour exploitation. Unlike sex trafficking, most of it is taking place in the victims' own countries.
DESPERATE FOR WORK
Although the ILO gives no breakdown, campaigners say forced labour involving women and girls includes everything from being enslaved in private homes as servants, cooks and nannies to working in factories, farms and textile mills, and even, according to some reports, nail bars and cannabis farms.
Another notable trend has been the trafficking of women into forced marriages in regions where men outnumber women. For example, 70 percent of the trafficking cases in Myanmar in 2011 involved local women being lured into neighbouring China - often on the pretext of finding work - only to be forced to marry Chinese men.
"Today you don't have to kidnap people, use violence to pull people into slavery," said Kevin Bales, co-founder of Free the Slaves. "There are so many people who are desperate for work ... that you just have to offer people a job."
Despite the scale of the problem and the suffering it causes, eradicating modern day slavery has proved elusive.
One of the hurdles is identifying victims.
Those in domestic servitude - whether migrant domestic workers or not - are less visible than in sex trafficking, which is one of the reasons why the sector has been overlooked, activists say.
So-called domestic slaves tend to be isolated and hidden from view, with abuses usually occurring behind closed doors.
DOMESTIC SERVITUDE
In the privacy of their own homes, employers are often able to get away with violations that amount to enslavement, activists say. It can start with them confiscating their maids' passports and identity documents or not paying them - and escalate to not feeding them, insulting them verbally and beating them.
"There are so many cases of adults and children being fed scraps, having to sleep under the dining room table, being at the beck and call of their bosses," said Anti-Slavery International spokeswoman Elizabeth Muggleton.
"With child domestic workers, they might just look like another member of the family. It takes a slightly keen eye to recognise that there's only one child who's carrying the shopping bags," she said, referring to "Cinderella-style" cases of children forced to look after other children, and being badly mistreated.
In recognition of their particular vulnerability, governments adopted ILO's Convention 189 to protect domestic workers last year in a boost for millions of exploited women. To date, three countries - Uruguay, the Philippines and Mauritius - have ratifed the treaty.
Yet at the same time, many countries like Britain and the majority of Arab states have tied work permits for domestic workers to a single employer.
It's a policy that exposes workers to the risk of forced labour because it leaves them with few alternatives but to stick it out with a potentially abusive employer, experts say.
The fight against slavery has been championed recently by the United States with what advocates say was a landmark speech by President Barack Obama in September.
Calling it "one of the great human rights causes of our time", Obama announced a string of initiatives to combat the problem including an executive order designed to strengthen U.S. efforts to stamp out slavery from federal contracts.
While giving credit to countries such as Brazil and the United States for taking the lead in addressing forced labour, Beate Andrees, head of ILO's special action programme to combat forced labour, said: "We don't have the critical masses yet."
"There are many leaders and governments who can deny (it) and don't want to address it, so we are still a long way from eliminating the problem," Andrees told TrustLaw in a telephone interview from Geneva.
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO END SLAVERY?
Besides political will, tackling corruption, pushing governments to enforce their anti-slavery laws and companies to scrutinise their supply chains would go a long way to ending slavery, experts say.
So would boosting the number of convictions for trafficking.
"The very numbers of identified victims or convicted traffickers remain very, very low," Silke Albert, a crime prevention expert for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told TrustLaw.
Last year, 946 trafficking cases were referred to the British authorities, yet only eight human trafficking convictions were secured in England and Wales.
"Trafficking is a very complex crime," UNODC's Albert said. "Many victims are for example in illegal situations. They have been brought in illegally or they have not been employed legally ... so they fear the police instead of turning to the police, and of course, they are badly controlled by their traffickers."
Women are both the victims of trafficking and the perpetrators, according to a UNODC report in 2009, which said female offenders had a more prominent role in present day slavery than in most other crimes.
It is unclear whether that is because women have been coerced into recruiting other women or because they can more easily approach and gain the trust of their victims.
What's certain is that women and girls will continue to suffer - and slavery will continue to thrive if its root causes are left unaddressed.
"The root causes of slavery are in social injustice, in discrimination, in poverty," Gulnara Shahinian, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, told TrustLaw. "Where all of these things are existing in a country, slavery will exist."
This article is part of a Thomson Reuters Foundation special report on trafficking and modern day slavery.
Trafficking and modern day slavery will be high on the agenda at the Trust Women conference, Dec 4-5
Related articles
Monday, November 12, 2012
Omidyars’ Fight to End Slavery Featured in Forbes Magazine
Omidyars’ Fight to End Slavery Featured in Forbes Magazine:
One of the most important things to happen to the anti-slavery movement in the past decade has been an infusion of resources from philanthropists who’ve decided they don’t want to live in a world with slavery in it.
And no one has been more generous than Pam and Pierre Omidyar.
Their story is featured in the latest edition of Forbes Magazine. The article’s title: “Inside eBay Billionaire Pierre Omidyar’s Battle to end Human Trafficking.”
The story reveals that the Omidyars’ have donated $115 million to their foundation, Humanity United, which in turn funds 85 anti-slavery groups including Free the Slaves. They pledge to invest $50 million more.
The creation of the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST), of which FTS is a founding member, has been made possible by funding from Humanity United. ATEST has been instrumental in coordinating the efforts of America’s top anti-slavery groups to advocate for a stronger commitment from the U.S. government.
“Having the Omidyars’ names attached to the cause has helped legitimize it,” FTS co-founder Kevin Bales says in the Forbes article. “If you want a politician to pay attention to anything, put a billionaire’s name on it.”
Read more in Forbes about how a billionaire’s optimism (“all people are basically good,” says Pierre) has helped kick start the effort to free slaves worldwide.
One of the most important things to happen to the anti-slavery movement in the past decade has been an infusion of resources from philanthropists who’ve decided they don’t want to live in a world with slavery in it.
And no one has been more generous than Pam and Pierre Omidyar.
Their story is featured in the latest edition of Forbes Magazine. The article’s title: “Inside eBay Billionaire Pierre Omidyar’s Battle to end Human Trafficking.”
The story reveals that the Omidyars’ have donated $115 million to their foundation, Humanity United, which in turn funds 85 anti-slavery groups including Free the Slaves. They pledge to invest $50 million more.
The creation of the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST), of which FTS is a founding member, has been made possible by funding from Humanity United. ATEST has been instrumental in coordinating the efforts of America’s top anti-slavery groups to advocate for a stronger commitment from the U.S. government.
“Having the Omidyars’ names attached to the cause has helped legitimize it,” FTS co-founder Kevin Bales says in the Forbes article. “If you want a politician to pay attention to anything, put a billionaire’s name on it.”
Read more in Forbes about how a billionaire’s optimism (“all people are basically good,” says Pierre) has helped kick start the effort to free slaves worldwide.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Slavery Still Exists - Lisa Kristine - The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/09/slavery-still-exists/262847/#.UGTI_aY_TP0.wordpress
Source: The Atlantic
SEP 26 2012, 1:10 PM ET
- Lisa Kristine is a California-based photographer. Her personal website is LisaKristine.com.
Lisa Kristine
Around the world human traffickers trick many people into slavery by false promises of good jobs or good education, only to find themselves forced to work without pay, under the threat of violence. Trapped by phony debt, these slaves are hunted by local police and private security guards if they try to escape.
Sometimes slaves don't even understand that they're enslaved, despite people working 16 or 17 hours a day with no pay. They're simply used to it as something they've been doing their whole lives. Their bodies grow weak and vulnerable to disease, but they have nothing to compare their experience to.
For the last 28 years I have documented people in more than 100 countries on six continents. In 2009, at the Vancouver Peace Summit, I met a supporter of Free the Slaves, an NGO dedicated to eradicating modern-day slavery; weeks later, I flew down to Los Angeles and met with the director of Free the Slaves; thus began my journey into exploring modern-day slavery.
Oddly, I'd been to most of the locations where I started photographing slavery many times before. I even considered some of them homes-away-from-home. But there can be dark corners in familiar places.
Accra, Ghana: These gold miners have just come out of the shaft, their pants soaked from their own sweat. Most had spent all their money coming from the north hoping to strike it rich in legal mines. But legal operations require certifications. When they can't get a job, the men take high-interest loans or join groups of slaves in mines abandoned by legitimate operations.
Accra, Ghana: 200 feet underground, a man labors in an illegal gold mine. He and others enslaved like him are underground for as long as 72 hours at a time.
Accra, Ghana: Many of those enslaved had children with them while panning for gold, wading in waters poisoned by mercury that is used in the extraction process.
Kathmandu, Nepal: For this photo, I was escorted by women who had previously been enslaved themselves. They brought me down a narrow set of stairs leading to a green fluorescent-lit basement. This wasn't a brothel as such; it was a "cabin restaurants," as they are known in the trade -- venues for forced prostitution. Each has a small private room where slaves, some as young as seven, entertain and serve the clients, encouraging them to buy alcohol and food. These cubicles are small, dark, and dingy, each identified with a number painted on the wall, and partitioned by plywood and a curtain. The workers here often endure sexual abuse at the hands of the customers. Standing in the near darkness, I realized there was only one way out -- the stairs where I came in: no back doors, no windows large enough to climb through, no escape at all.
Kathmandu, Nepal: A worker blends in with the bricks at a Nepalese kiln. Workers mechanically stack 18 bricks at a time, each weighing four pounds, and carry them to nearby trucks for 18 hours a day without any payment or compensation.
Lake Volta, Ghana: Fhanaian NGOs estimate that between 4,000 and 10,000 trafficked children are enslaved on Lake Volta, the largest man-made lake in the world. At first glance this image appears to be a family fishing in the lake, two older brothers and some kids. I was alarmed to learn that they were actually enslaved, working in plain sight. These children have been lost to their parents and are forced to work endless hours in boats on the lake, though they're unable to swim.
Lake Volta, Ghana: Child workers usually work from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. on cold, windy nights to reel in nets weighing as much as 1,000 pounds when they are full of fish. Skeletal tree limbs submerged in Lake Volta frequently entangle the fishing nets, and and slave masters will throw weary, frightened children into the water to free the trapped lines, sometimes drowning them. I didn't meet one child who didn't know another who had drowned.
Lake Volta, Ghana: There are triumphs, too. Meet Kofi, a young boy who was rescued from slavery in a fishing village. I met Khofi at a shelter where Free the Slaves rehabilitate victims of slavery. He was bathing at the well, pouring big buckets of water over his head. Thanks to the efforts of organizations like Free the Slaves, today Kofi has been reunited with his parents, who were provided tools to make a living and to keep their children safe from human traffickers.
In the Himalayas I found children hauling stone for miles down steep mountain terrain to trucks waiting at the road below. These huge sheets of slate were heavier than the children themselves. The kids hoisted them with their heads using handmade harnesses made from sticks, rope, and torn cloth.
Uttar Pradesh, India: In India I visited a village where whole families were enslaved in the silk industry. This is a family portrait. The father (hands in black) and his sons (hands in red and blue) are held captive in a "silk dyeing house." The dye they work with is toxic. It's common for entire families to be enslaved for generations. My translator told me their story. "We have no freedom," they said. "But we hope, some day, we will be able to leave this house and make dyes in a place where we actually get paid for it."
Uttar Pradesh, India: Slaveholders burned down these people's villages after they declared their freedom. Many of the neighbors wanted to give up, they were so frightened -- but the woman in the center encouraged them to persevere. Abolitionists helped them get a quarry lease of their own. Now they do the same backbreaking work, but they at least get paid for it, and they do it in freedom.
Source: The Atlantic
SEP 26 2012, 1:10 PM ET
- Lisa Kristine is a California-based photographer. Her personal website is LisaKristine.com.
Photographs of human trafficking and enslavement around the world
Lisa Kristine
It was 130 degrees when I was first introduced to the brick kilns of Nepal. In these severe temperatures, men, women, and children -- whole families, in fact -- were surrounded by a dense cloud of dust while mechanically stacking bricks on their heads, carrying them, 18 at a time, from the scorching kilns to trucks hundreds of yards away.
These are slaves. Deadened by monotony and exhaustion, they worked without speaking, repeating the same task 16 hours a day. They took no rest for food or water, no bathroom breaks -- although their dehydration suppressed their need to urinate.
Around the world human traffickers trick many people into slavery by false promises of good jobs or good education, only to find themselves forced to work without pay, under the threat of violence. Trapped by phony debt, these slaves are hunted by local police and private security guards if they try to escape.
Sometimes slaves don't even understand that they're enslaved, despite people working 16 or 17 hours a day with no pay. They're simply used to it as something they've been doing their whole lives. Their bodies grow weak and vulnerable to disease, but they have nothing to compare their experience to.
For the last 28 years I have documented people in more than 100 countries on six continents. In 2009, at the Vancouver Peace Summit, I met a supporter of Free the Slaves, an NGO dedicated to eradicating modern-day slavery; weeks later, I flew down to Los Angeles and met with the director of Free the Slaves; thus began my journey into exploring modern-day slavery.
Oddly, I'd been to most of the locations where I started photographing slavery many times before. I even considered some of them homes-away-from-home. But there can be dark corners in familiar places.
These are not images of "problems." They're images of people. There are 27 million slaves in the world today: That's more than double the number of people taken from Africa during the entire transatlantic slave trade. A hundred and fifty years ago, an average agricultural slave cost over three times the average yearly wage of an American worker, about US$50,000 in today's money. Yet now, entire families can be enslaved for generations over a debt as small as $18. Slavery is illegal everywhere, but it exists all over the world.
Accra, Ghana: These gold miners have just come out of the shaft, their pants soaked from their own sweat. Most had spent all their money coming from the north hoping to strike it rich in legal mines. But legal operations require certifications. When they can't get a job, the men take high-interest loans or join groups of slaves in mines abandoned by legitimate operations.Accra, Ghana: 200 feet underground, a man labors in an illegal gold mine. He and others enslaved like him are underground for as long as 72 hours at a time.Accra, Ghana: Many of those enslaved had children with them while panning for gold, wading in waters poisoned by mercury that is used in the extraction process.Kathmandu, Nepal: For this photo, I was escorted by women who had previously been enslaved themselves. They brought me down a narrow set of stairs leading to a green fluorescent-lit basement. This wasn't a brothel as such; it was a "cabin restaurants," as they are known in the trade -- venues for forced prostitution. Each has a small private room where slaves, some as young as seven, entertain and serve the clients, encouraging them to buy alcohol and food. These cubicles are small, dark, and dingy, each identified with a number painted on the wall, and partitioned by plywood and a curtain. The workers here often endure sexual abuse at the hands of the customers. Standing in the near darkness, I realized there was only one way out -- the stairs where I came in: no back doors, no windows large enough to climb through, no escape at all.Kathmandu, Nepal: A worker blends in with the bricks at a Nepalese kiln. Workers mechanically stack 18 bricks at a time, each weighing four pounds, and carry them to nearby trucks for 18 hours a day without any payment or compensation.Lake Volta, Ghana: Fhanaian NGOs estimate that between 4,000 and 10,000 trafficked children are enslaved on Lake Volta, the largest man-made lake in the world. At first glance this image appears to be a family fishing in the lake, two older brothers and some kids. I was alarmed to learn that they were actually enslaved, working in plain sight. These children have been lost to their parents and are forced to work endless hours in boats on the lake, though they're unable to swim.Lake Volta, Ghana: Child workers usually work from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. on cold, windy nights to reel in nets weighing as much as 1,000 pounds when they are full of fish. Skeletal tree limbs submerged in Lake Volta frequently entangle the fishing nets, and and slave masters will throw weary, frightened children into the water to free the trapped lines, sometimes drowning them. I didn't meet one child who didn't know another who had drowned.Lake Volta, Ghana: There are triumphs, too. Meet Kofi, a young boy who was rescued from slavery in a fishing village. I met Khofi at a shelter where Free the Slaves rehabilitate victims of slavery. He was bathing at the well, pouring big buckets of water over his head. Thanks to the efforts of organizations like Free the Slaves, today Kofi has been reunited with his parents, who were provided tools to make a living and to keep their children safe from human traffickers.In the Himalayas I found children hauling stone for miles down steep mountain terrain to trucks waiting at the road below. These huge sheets of slate were heavier than the children themselves. The kids hoisted them with their heads using handmade harnesses made from sticks, rope, and torn cloth.Uttar Pradesh, India: In India I visited a village where whole families were enslaved in the silk industry. This is a family portrait. The father (hands in black) and his sons (hands in red and blue) are held captive in a "silk dyeing house." The dye they work with is toxic. It's common for entire families to be enslaved for generations. My translator told me their story. "We have no freedom," they said. "But we hope, some day, we will be able to leave this house and make dyes in a place where we actually get paid for it."Uttar Pradesh, India: Slaveholders burned down these people's villages after they declared their freedom. Many of the neighbors wanted to give up, they were so frightened -- but the woman in the center encouraged them to persevere. Abolitionists helped them get a quarry lease of their own. Now they do the same backbreaking work, but they at least get paid for it, and they do it in freedom.Friday, May 25, 2012
Lisa Kristine Illuminates the World of Modern Slavery
Lisa Kristine Illuminates the World of Modern Slavery:
You may already have seen some of Lisa Kristine’s captivating photographs that feature work of Free the Slaves around the world. Now, you can see Lisa talk about her experiences capturing the reality of slavery in mine shafts, brick kilns and makeshift brothels.
Lisa’s recent TedX presentation is available online. She spoke in January in Hawaii.
Lisa’s collection of images is available in an inspiring book, Slavery. It’s available directly from Lisa’s gallery. Proceeds benefit Free the Slaves.
You may already have seen some of Lisa Kristine’s captivating photographs that feature work of Free the Slaves around the world. Now, you can see Lisa talk about her experiences capturing the reality of slavery in mine shafts, brick kilns and makeshift brothels.
Lisa’s recent TedX presentation is available online. She spoke in January in Hawaii.
Lisa’s collection of images is available in an inspiring book, Slavery. It’s available directly from Lisa’s gallery. Proceeds benefit Free the Slaves.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
MTV's College Network Amplifies Student Efforts to End Modern-Day Slavery in the "mtvU Against Our Will Campaign" - MarketWatch
Sept. 22, 2011, 2:30 p.m. EDT
--Campaign Partners Include Free the Slaves, GEMS and Polaris Project --mtvU Launches "Slavery Footprint Campus Challenge" with the U.S. State Department and Call and Response
NEW YORK, Sept. 22, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Today at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting, MTV's College Network mtvU and a student activist from Atlanta announced the launch of the "mtvU Against Our Will Campaign," in partnership with Free the Slaves, Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS) and Polaris Project. This new campaign taps into the growing student movement to end modern-day slavery and makes it easy for young people to take action to help stop one of the greatest human rights atrocities of our time. Today, it is estimated that there are as many as 27 million sex and labor slaves worldwide.
Through a series of on-air, online and real world initiatives that spotlight domestic sex and labor slavery, the "mtvU Against Our Will Campaign" will shed light on our nation's role in this global epidemic. According to The National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) hotline, incidences of human trafficking have been reported in all 50 states in the past two years. Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery where people profit from the control and exploitation of others. Sex trafficking includes instances where a child is involved in the commercial sex trade, or when adults are coerced or forced into this trade under the control of a pimp. Labor trafficking occurs when workers are forced to work against their will without pay, and can take place in a variety of industries, from farms and factories to nail salons and restaurants.
Currently, there are more than 300 student organizations on campuses around the country taking action to stop human trafficking. The "mtvU Against Our Will Campaign" will serve as a platform to spotlight student actions, connect young people with ways to get involved, and galvanize the college audience's effort to stop human trafficking.
"Young people on campuses around the country are rising up and taking action to help end modern day slavery," said Stephen Friedman, President of MTV. "As we've seen with the anti-apartheid movement and the genocide in Darfur, students are a powerful engine for social change, and mtvU is proud to give them a national megaphone to help abolish all forms of slavery in our country."
"GEMS is excited to partner with mtvU on this ground-breaking initiative," said Rachel Lloyd, Executive Director and Founder, Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS). "As an agency that has effectively worked with media to deglamorize the commercial sex industry, foster awareness of the issue, and give voice to survivor's experiences, we're thrilled to extend this message to millions of college students across the country so they can raise awareness and take action against commercial sexual exploitation and domestic sex trafficking."
Elements of the "mtvU Against Our Will Campaign" include:
"mtvU's Against Our Will: Fighting Modern-Day Slavery in the United States": MTV's SuChin Pak and Sway Calloway are hosting a half-hour, commercial-free special this fall on mtvU (date to be announced). This programming block will feature poignant interviews with human trafficking survivors and students talking about what they can do to take action to end modern-day slavery, along with excerpts from roundtable conversations with college students candidly discussing the issue.
Programming: mtvU will premiere a series of in-depth interviews with human trafficking survivors and eye-opening discussions with college students. From exposing the role of pimps in trafficking to profiling students who are taking action to inspire change, this series of short-form features illuminates the connection between the commercial sex industry and slavery in order to lessen demand for slaves; shed light on the realities of modern-day slavery; and outline ways students can and are already taking action to put an end to human trafficking. All of this content will be available on demand at www.mtvU.AgainstOurWill.org . Additionally, throughout the year, the network will integrate this issue into some of its most popular franchises.
PSAs: mtvU will roll out a collection of PSAs online and on-air looking at different aspects of this issue, from sex to labor trafficking.
Human Property: symbolically explores how sex and labor trafficking victims are treated like property.
Hotel Room: inspired by true stories of survivors, this spot addresses the demand that fuels modern-day slavery, and looks at misperceptions associated with commercially sexually exploited women and children.
Boyfriends?: demonstrates the ways pimps use lies to coerce and manipulate children and young women into modern-day slavery.
Hair Salon: based on a true story where girls were brought to the U.S. and forced to work in a hair braiding salon for 14 hours a day without any pay, this spot illuminates the reality of modern day slavery, and shows how trafficking victims can be in plain sight without anyone noticing.
Slavery Footprint Campus Challenge: in partnership with Call + Response's Slavery Footprint, which is being supported by the U.S. State Department, the network is calling on students to help stop slavery in the "Slavery Footprint Campus Challenge." Students can download this new application to take actions such as checking-in at retail and restaurant locations to alert brands and business owners that they want slave-free products. The Challenge, which launched today and runs through December 31, 2011, will reward the top 10 students at the University taking the most action with a trip to attend mtvU's annual college music award show, the mtvU Woodie Awards. For full rules and regulations, please head to mtvU.AgainstOurWill.org.
mtvU.AgainstOurWill.org: as the central hub of the campaign, mtvU.AgainstOurWill.org will provide comprehensive information on the prevalence of modern day sex and labor slavery in the U.S. Additionally, the site will outline ways students can continue the fight to stop sex and labor slavery through: raising awareness; decreasing demand for goods and services provided by trafficking victims; joining or starting a student group; supporting organizations that are fighting modern-day slavery through donations, fundraising, by purchasing survivor-made products or by volunteering to help survivors or at-risk youth; joining the discussion surrounding human trafficking legislation; encouraging their schools to adopt human trafficking curricula; and by reporting situations where they suspect trafficking is happening.
Illuminating Student Action: mtvU will spotlight students across the country who are taking action to help stop modern-day slavery through programming and online at Act.MTV.com, MTV's blog dedicated to celebrating young people who are taking action. In the first programming spot, mtvU speaks with Chinny, a recent Kennesaw State graduate who along with her peers reported a case of suspected human trafficking at a restaurant near her school in Atlanta. As it turned out, the restaurant was part of a larger human trafficking ring, and the students' work helped to expose it.
Student Organizing: the campaign will help students on campuses across the country continue to organize efforts to end modern-day slavery. Found on mtvU.AgainstOurWill.org, mtvU will provide a digital toolkit with tips and guidelines to support campus organizing and a blog that will feature a monthly call-to-action. Additionally, Free the Slaves staff will be available for students to use as a resource on questions regarding how to best organize effective groups to help end human trafficking.
On-the-Ground Events: the "mtvU Against Our Will Campaign" will touch down at campuses around the country this fall and spring. Dates and additional information to be announced at a later time.
Campaign Partners: The network collaborated with leading organizations focused on stopping modern-day slavery to develop the "mtvU Against our Will Campaign." As partners in this initiative, Free the Slaves, GEMS, and Polaris Project are official advisors for the program, and worked closely with mtvU to develop the campaign.
"Polaris Project is proud to partner with mtvU to raise awareness on human trafficking, an issue that needs a major increase in attention and resources to combat it," said Bradley Myles, Executive Director and CEO of Polaris Project. "We look forward to connecting college students with the issue of modern-day slavery, and using mtvU as a platform to inspire action and affect real change."
"College students are the future of the abolitionist movement," said Free the Slaves College Chapter Coordinator Laura Murphy. "They will become the researchers, the legislators, the social workers, the lawyers, the teachers and nonprofit leaders who will ensure a future without slavery in the U.S. and abroad."
As defined under U.S. federal law, victims of human trafficking include children involved in the sex trade, adults age 18 or over who are coerced or deceived into commercial sex acts, and anyone forced into different forms of "labor or services," such as domestic workers held in a home, or farm-workers forced to labor against their will. Every year, human traffickers generate billions of dollars in profits by victimizing millions of people around the world, and here in the United States. Human trafficking is considered to be one of the fastest growing criminal industries in the world. (source: www.polarisproject.org )
For more information on the "mtvU Against our Will Campaign" head to www.mtvU.AgainstOurWill.org or mtvU.com.
About mtvU
Broadcast to more than 750 college campuses and via top cable distributors in 700 college communities nationwide, mtvU reaches nearly 9 million U.S. college students - making it the largest, most comprehensive television network just for college students. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, mtvU can be seen in the dining areas, fitness centers, student lounges and dorm rooms of campuses throughout the U.S., as well as on cable systems from Charter Communications, Verizon FiOS TV, Suddenlink Communications, AT&T u-Verse and nearly 70 others. mtvU is dedicated to every aspect of college life, reaching students everywhere they are: on-air, online and on the campus. mtvU programs music videos from emerging artists that can't be seen anywhere else, news, student life features and initiatives that give college students the tools to advance positive social change. mtvU is always on campus, with hundreds of events per year, including exclusive concerts, giveaways, shooting mtvU series and more. For more information about mtvU, and a complete programming schedule, visit www.mtvU.com .
About Free the Slaves
Free the Slaves is one of America's leading anti-slavery organizations. We liberate slaves in hot spots around the globe, help survivors rebuild their lives, and attack the systems that allow modern slavery to exist. Our research is widely quoted by universities, governments and journalists. Our documentary films and videos about slavery, and news coverage of our innovative efforts to end it, have reached hundreds of millions of people throughout the world. Free the Slaves has student chapters at 16 college campuses across the U.S.
About Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS)
Girls Educational and Mentoring Services' (GEMS) mission is to empower girls and young women, ages 12-24, who have experienced commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking to exit the commercial sex industry and develop to their full potential. GEMS is committed to ending commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking of children by changing individual lives, transforming public perception, and revolutionizing the systems and policies that impact sexually exploited youth. For more information, please visit www.gems-girls.org/ .
About Polaris Project
Polaris Project is a leading organization in the United States combating all forms of human trafficking and serving both U.S. citizens and foreign national victims, including men, women, and children. We use a holistic strategy, taking what we learn from our work with survivors and using it to guide the creation of long-term solutions. We strive for systemic change by advocating for stronger federal and state laws, operating the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline (1.888.3737.888), and providing services to help our clients and all victims of human trafficking. For more information, visit www.PolarisProject.org .
About Call + Response
Call + Response is a division of the Fair Trade Fund, Inc. We are a non-profit organization whose goal is to generate awareness and deploy action for the issues of forced labor, slavery, and human trafficking. We believe the end of modern day slavery will come from individuals who gather together to push on businesses, media, and governments to support their existing values for human rights. We believe that this is a bottom-up movement that needs dynamic information, sustained inspiration, and most importantly, tactile activation. For more information, please visit www.callandresponse.com
About the Clinton Global Initiative
Established in 2005 by President Bill Clinton, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) convenes global leaders to devise and implement innovative solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges. Since 2005, CGI Annual Meetings have brought together nearly 150 current and former heads of state, 18 Nobel Prize laureates, hundreds of leading CEOs, heads of foundations, major philanthropists, directors of the most effective nongovernmental organizations, and prominent members of the media. These CGI members have made more than 2,000 commitments, which have already improved the lives of 300 million people in more than 180 countries. When fully funded and implemented, these commitments will be valued in excess of $63 billion. The 2011 Annual Meeting will take place Sept. 20-22 in New York City.
This year, CGI also convened CGI America, a meeting focused on developing ideas for driving economic growth in the United States. The CGI community also includes CGI U, which hosts an annual meeting for undergraduate and graduate students, and CGI Lead, which engages a select group of young CGI members for leadership development and collective commitment-making. For more information, visit www.clintonglobalinitiative.org .
SOURCE mtvU
Related articles
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Jennifer Hamady: Free the Slaves
Source: Huffington Post
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Jennifer Hamady
Posted: 8/31/11 04:00 PM ET
I recently began a column about artists making a difference with their creativity in their communities. And I've had the great pleasure of writing about some incredible men and women.
Yet there's more to art than art. Artistry and creativity are not just results on a canvas, page, or stage. They are aspects of the spirit and ways of walking through the world.
With that in mind, I've expanded my focus to include all artists in the conversation, beginning with an incredible woman whose entire life -- personally, professionally, and spiritually -- is nothing less than a masterpiece.
Having spent almost 25 years working with the Institute for Development Research (IDR, which has now merged with World Education), Jane Covey now sits on the board of Free The Slaves, founded by Kevin Bales, Peggy Callahan and Jolene Smith. Below is a bit of our conversation about her life, her work, and the joy and importance of making a difference.
You're in the middle of an incredible life story. How did it begin? What shaped and prepared you for where you are today?
"My father was a career military officer in Air Force, so we moved around a lot. Looking back, what stands out as important was having exposure at an early age to difference. At 8, for example, we moved to Japan during the occupation and I had the experience of being the stranger and the other. Being from 'away', as we say here in Maine, has given me a sensitivity to people who are on the edges.
"In our family, there was always a notion of service. It was assumed that's what you would do with your life. When I came out of high school in 1961, my options -- according to my family -- were therefore teaching and nursing. As the eldest of five kids, the idea of being around more young people wasn't too attractive, so I chose nursing.
"In the late 70s, I went back to school to get my MBA. Not necessarily for a specific professional goal, but rather, to learn, open doors, and see. It was a great experience and, following a move to India, I began working in the 80s for IDR which helped build the capacity of NGOs (non-government organizations) around the world. Thirty years later, that notion of service still feels right."
How did you get involved with Free The Slaves?
"A friend invited me to think about it. He'd been consulting with the organization and said he thought the board could use someone like me and the work I'd done, particularly given my international work. I had never heard of the organization, much less slavery in that particular frame. I had some meetings and was very impressed. Free the Slaves exits to end slavery worldwide; their work and contribution in the first 10 years has been tremendous. I went in rather ignorant and I am still in the early learning stages of what modern day slavery is and getting it integrated into my own experience."
We hear about sex trafficking, as well as bonded and child labor. But we don't seem to hear about or consider 'slavery' to be a modern, ongoing issue.
"Exactly. The language of 'labor' implies somehow -- even subconsciously -- that it is on some level a choice people have made. Even the word 'trafficking' speaks more to the trade than the experience of the people trapped within it. And this is deliberate. Slavery, and the people it its clutches, are very hidden. They're in every country around the world even though slavery is illegal everywhere. In the US, they're nannies, agricultural workers, landscape workers, restaurant workers as well as sex workers. And perhaps 99% of those we see are indeed there by choice. But there are those that aren't as well. Many are brought over from other countries with promises of jobs, education, and a better future for themselves and their children, only to become trapped by violence or the threat of violence. They have no options."
It's hard for many of us in the West to comprehend 'no options'. While perceptually or emotionally we've all experienced the notion of being trapped, to experience it as a concrete reality is a different matter entirely.
"In the US we have trouble understanding because we don't see how vulnerable people are who are poor and without education, without any hopes that their children's lives will be better than theirs have been. There are people around the world living marginalized lives. Not only for the lack of money, but because they do not have a place in their communities. They are on the fringes. They are essentially without value in their own societies. It's that vulnerability that responds when someone comes to the village and says, 'I can get your son a job so he can send money home to you.' That child, sometimes as young as 5 or 6 ends up weaving rugs in a dimly lit, locked shanty for twelve hours a day, fed only enough to keep him alive.
"As well, where poverty is absolute, people often have children they simply can't feed. In those cultures, children working is very common and necessary. The families are too poor to allow their kids to go to school. So the promise of a job where they can have a better life and send money home is like a dream. Sometimes, it's simply even a promise of their survival, of their being able to survive and live. In these circumstances, the choice is between desperation or false hope. The latter often occurs as a sensible choice."
How many slaves are there in the United States today?
The estimate is around 40,000 in areas including domestic workers, prostitution, agriculture, sweat shops, and landscape businesses.
What can we do? What can we read? What do we need to know?
"The most important thing, I believe, is to educate yourself. Books are a certainly a way to do that. Disposable People, Kevin's first book is a great start, as is his Ending Slavery, where Kevin has basically laid out a system and plan for the same, which our organization has taken on. We focus on partnerships with organizations and people in the most vulnerable countries, including Haiti, India, Nepal, The Congo, and Cameroon. We financially support those groups to liberate and then rehabilitate. Because if you've been enslaved, even when you're free -- if you have no other option -- you'll possibly go back.
"In the United States, Free The Slaves focuses on raising awareness and supporting anti-slavery efforts here and abroad. (The website is constantly updated with information and resources, as well as inspiring, personal stories about men and women who have reclaimed their freedom.) The United States has anti-trafficking laws and slavery is illegal. Still, like all over the world, these things happen. There are brokers that literally bring slaves in every area over, through both legal and illegal channels. Many states have abolitionist movements that you can get involved with. First though, is understanding that slavery does exist."
I'd now like to talk about how this work -- this type of work -- has impacted your life.
(Laughing) "I believe many people might say that I'm a bleeding heart liberal. A do-gooder person. And to some extent it's true. But the fact is that I have gotten so much more than I have given in this work. I literally view it as privilege to be involved. When I was working with IDR, I would go into communities, meet the NGO activists, get to know them and the people they were working with. And I was always stunned at the courage, the grace and intelligence, the strength and the basic goodness of the people. Whatever we did to help was more like a catalyst than anything else. The real change, hope and struggle was in those folks. To be part of and to witness that, and to be the recipient of the sharing of that has been amazing. A truly humbling and enriching experience."
What wisdom would you like to share with readers about your work, your life, and your journey?
"Having had the circumstances of privilege, such that I get to choose work based on my values and passion and my personal vision of how the world ought to be, the one I believe in, has just been an amazing joy. I can't think of having a better work or professional life than that. I know that circumstances are such that not everyone has the freedom to do that. But I also know that many that do, don't. People see themselves as not having the choice, or choose not to make it. And they're missing out on how fulfilling, satisfying and enjoyable that choice, that life could be."
Many people, when presented with the idea of 'being a contribution', have the perspective that they simply don't have the time or energy to step into the life you're describing and living. What would you say to them?
"I would say to do one little thing, whatever it is. Do that volunteer day that your corporation puts together. If you're a visual artist and someone asks you to put a piece into a community auction, do it. Giving just a small amount of time or effort, a part of what you do, makes such a difference. The opportunities for contribution that work for you are out there. For example, I've been very strategic now that I'm retired about what I'll get involved with, and how. People are afraid if they say yes they'll get sucked in beyond what they can do or handle. Don't let this take you out of the game. You can state your own terms. Just say yes. Just make it fit. As my granddaughters would say, 'give it a go'."
Visit www.freetheslaves.net for more information about the great work Jane and the organization are doing.
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