A burst of activity among state legislatures to target human trafficking has ushered in dozens of laws to step up criminal penalties against traffickers and offer new help to victims. Read more here.
If you’re in Ohio, check out End Slavery Cincinnati for help on contacting your local senators in Ohio.
We love finding out about organizations using fashion to fight human trafficking! The Blind Project of NYC is launching a new fashion line called Biographe, an open source fashion brand. Their vision is right in line with Stop Traffick Fashion and we hope to carry their line one day in the future. Find our more below about how you can contribute your designs to their new line. What a fun way to get involved!
The Blind Project Launches A Crowdsourcing Design Challenge Called ‘Be A Biographer’ To Help Victims And Survivors Of The Commercial Sex Trade
Do you imagine a world where profit comes from moral purpose? Where every purchase is a vote? Where creativity challenges the world’s perception of what is possible?
The social enterprise - a sustainable business that combines non-profit social purposes with for-profit market strategies - is no longer a niche idea. The Blind Project is proudly leading the charge with the launch of Be A Biographer, a crowdsourcing design challenge for a new sustainable style brand called Biographe.
So here’s the challenge. We’re inviting designers, artists and creative-minded people to help tell the stories of victims and survivors of the commercial sex trade through their designs. “We want to connect your talents with her needs. For freedom, love, hope, dignity and protection. Our role is simple. To tell her story. To be her biographer,” said Anthony Dodero, co-founder of The Blind Project.
Right now millions of women and children are being enslaved and exploited in the multi-billion dollar commercial sex trade. “Sexual slavery can seem so dark and foreign, but our hope for Be A Biographer is to present a more human, more expressive face to this problem,” said Jessica Sturman, The Blind Project’s lead fashion designer.
Biographe is unique in its method of connecting victims and consumers together to bring attention to, and provide solutions for, sexual slavery. Fashion products are inspired by victim’s stories, designed with the public at large through our crowdsourcing design process, and then made by women who have been rescued from the commercial sex trade. Proceeds from sales are then reinvested back into the women’s lives creating a virtuous sustainable cycle.
“Biographe matters not solely because of what we are creating, but how we are creating it,” said Kyle Westaway, The Blind Project’s business development lead. “What makes Biographe truly unique, is the creation of a more personal 1-to-1 connection between two distinct populations - victims and consumers - and moving them both toward a better tomorrow.”
Participants have until September 15th to submit a design on www.beabiographer.com. Then from September 16th to October 7th, public voting begins to determine the 15 semi-finalists (5 for each of the 3 stories) based on the highest number of votes. On October 21st three Grand Finalists will be selected by our panel of notable judges. The winning designs will be incorporated into fashion items, printed for gallery exhibitions and shown in advertising campaigns.
We are honored to have Alex Bogusky - Co-Chairman of Crispin Porter + Bogusky and Chief Creative Insurgent of MDC Partners, Somaly Mam - Anti-Human Trafficking Advocate and Founder of AFESIP, and AnnaLynne McCord - The Blind Project Ambassador, join the judging panel with The Blind Project fashion team.
“The power of problem-solving creativity, the survivor’s voice for victims, and the influence of youth activism is what makes collaboration with Alex, Somaly and AnnaLynne so amazing,” said Kevin Kim, The Blind Project’s marketing lead. “Every person has that something special - a talent, a gift - to make this cause stronger, more influential, and more personal. Join us.”
The Blind Project - Final from Putra Roeung on Vimeo.
Nicholas Kristof, NYT columnist and author of Half the Sky, has a new op-ed piece published today on sex trafficking in America. As our readers know, trafficking happens everywhere but the exact ways and reasons in which it happens differ in each country. I definitely recommend reading this article for a good overview of the major circumstances around sex trafficking in the US.
Despite who you wanted to win the World Cup, there is some good news coming out of it! Many feared that the World Cup would lead to an increase in trafficking and prostitution. Although there is no definitive data, CNN is reporting that business in the sex trade was down during the World Cup as fans were more drawn to museums! And if you’re interested in getting a jersey for your team you might want to check out the supply chain grade your favorite brand got from Free2Work. The Free2Work Campaign rates companies on their labor policies, giving each one a grade from A to F, indicating how well it’s preventing slavery and exploitation from tainting its product.
5 Weeks for Freedom is a major awareness and advocacy campaign to support International Justice Mission’s work and give a voice to victims of modern-day slavery and other forms of injustice. A team of ordinary people is giving up 5 weeks to cycle 1800 miles of the Underground Railroad – a route that reminds us that change happens when ordinary people do what they can to stop injustice, that the evil of slavery has been defeated once, and that, together, we can do it again. You can find out more about the campaign here.
Throughout their journey there will be several events at cities along the route - including Cincinnati! The details of the events are below. These would definitely be a great way to get involved and tell your friends about human trafficking.
I’m sure I’m going to be processing everything I’ve learned on my trip to visit Hagar in Cambodia for awhile. What should I do with all of this new knowledge and experience? Maybe you are wondering the same thing. Maybe you’ve read what I’ve written and are interested in doing more. I hope that is the case! If so, here are some ideas for ways to learn more and get involved. If you’re interested in talking more please contact me at hello(at)stoptraffickfashion(dot)com.
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Dear friend, Today, the State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP) released its annual Trafficking in Persons Report - a major annual milestone in the fight against modern-day slavery. This report sheds light on the reality of human trafficking and slavery in 175 countries, including - for the first time - the United States. You can read the 2010 TIP Report here. This summer, you can take action in the fight against modern-day slavery by meeting with one or both of your senators in your home state to share your support for the TIP Office and the Child Protection Compact Act - legislation that will help eradicate child trafficking in selected focus countries. Our team will schedule and coordinate these meetings for you as part of a unified month of action in August 2010 - Take the leap and sign up today! We will train, guide and support you, provide you with talking points, offer trainings by phone before your meeting, schedule for you based on the availability you indicate, and help you connect to other advocates in your area. Your senators care what you think about these issues. Will you join us? Learn more about the TIP Office and the powerful impact of the TIP Report internationally here. Thank you for your partnership in this work. Gratefully, P.S. Schedule too full for a meeting? Urge your Senators to support the Child Protection Compact Act today though IJM’s Justice Campaigns current Action Alert online. |
Today was day one of my trip to Cambodia! The day was focused on getting a big picture view of the situation in Cambodia by meeting with leaders of various organizations working here. I had aspirations to summarize the many notes I took but now that I go through them there are just too many! So I will highlight a few things and focus the biggest thing I took away from today.
Many of the leaders commented that the partnerships and networks among the NGOs are the strongest among many cities they have worked in. The Director of World Hope stated, “There is no room for territorial-ism in this work. It’s too big. No agency can do it on their own.” It’s easy to see from just one day! We met with representatives from the following organizations:
Chab Dai - An NGO whose goal is to coordinate across all Christian NGOs working in the area of sex trafficking (Hagar is a partner in the Chab Dai coalition). The Director, Helen Swan, provided an excellent overview of many facts regarding trafficking in Cambodia. They have an excellent library full of many resources and strive to be a learning organization to provide knowledge to organizations in Cambodia and around the world. Their primary focus is on awareness and prevention of trafficking.
IJM - We’ve mentioned IJM many times, but they work in the area of legal and social work to handle investigations, provide short term crisis intervention to victims who have been rescued, and advocate for victims throughout the trial process. They also provide training to local police and judicial officials on the trafficking laws, how to prosecute them and how to treat the victims in order to create lasting structural change.
World Hope - An NGO who provides short term, emergency room aftercare for victims. Once they have been rescued by law enforcement they are brought to the World Hope shelter for 2-2 1/2 months of assessment to determine whether they can be reintegrated with their family or what the appropriate aftercare services are. This is where Hagar comes in, as they are one the possible shelters that may be recommended for long term aftercare.
Finally, we also visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum documenting many horrific acts of the Pol Pot regime. All of that resulted in an extremely overwhelming day! It would be easy to end in despair after hearing so many of Cambodia’s current problems. However, in the end I was struck by the hope. Not just what comes from Hagar’s work, but I will, of course, focus on that in later posts. (more…)
Today the 2010 State Department Trafficking in Persons report was released, marking the US’s tenth anniversary of publishing the report card. The report provides a ranking of countries based on their efforts to fight trafficking. In Secretary Clinton’s opening remarks she stated:
The 10th annual Trafficking in Persons Report outlines the continuing challenges across the globe, including in the United States. The Report, for the first time, includes a ranking of the United States based on the same standards to which we hold other countries. The United States takes its first-ever ranking not as a reprieve but as a responsibility to strengthen global efforts against modern slavery, including those within America. This human rights abuse is universal, and no one should claim immunity from its reach or from the responsibility to confront it.
I have finally started to read Half the Sky, a book by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn. I was able to watch the movie event based on it but am finally making the time to read it! Kristof and Wudunn show how small things can help transform the lives of women and girls being oppressed in the developing world and the impact that it can have on global poverty. I am already excited just by reading the introduction! Here are a few paragraphs to inspire you:
Honor killings, sexual slavery, and genital cutting may seem to Western readers to be tragic but inevitable in a world far, far away. In much the same way, slavery was once widely viewed by many decent Europeans and Americans as regrettable but ineluctable feature of human life. It was just one more horror that had existed for thousands of years. But then in the 1780s a few indignant Britons, led by William Wilberforce, decided that slavery was so offensive that they had to abolish it. And they did. Today we see the seed of something similar: a global movement to emancipate women and girls.
So let us be clear about this up front: We hope to recruit you to join an incipient movement to emancipate women and fight global poverty by unlocking women’s power as economic catalysts. This is the process under way - not a drama of victimization but of empowerment, the kind that transforms bubbly teenage girls from brothel slaves into successful businesswomen.
Take your first step toward helping protect and empower women around the world. Ask Congress to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). This women’s treaty is used around the world to ensure women’s rights to own property, provide access to primary education and health care and protect women from domestic violence. They have ratified similar treaties for other issues like genocide and race, but have yet to do so to protect women.
I’m in! How about you?
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