Category — Activism

Established through a Senate resolution three years ago, January 11 is dedicated to raising awareness of and opposition to human trafficking.

Raising awareness is a crucial first step, but alone it is not enough. Knowledge without action is information wasted. Outlined below you’ll find a variety of ways that you can immediately engage your friends and family on human trafficking.

•  Pledge to support victims of human trafficking by 1/27/2012 and tell us what you plan to do!

•  Start a photo campaign around your school on Valentine’s Day. Check out the details about how to get started with our “____________ against human trafficking” campaign. We’re accepting photo submissions through February 14. Send them to info@polarisproject.org

•  Fundraise. Host a fundraiser to raise money for Polaris Project to help meet the critical needs of survivors. This works best if done by a group of people or a club. Not able to get a group of people together? No problem! You can start your very own peer-to-peer fundraising campaign today and ask your friends and family members to get involved in the fight against slavery.

• Sign up for the Polaris Project grassroots network. Learn about our work, ways to get involved, and other updates from the anti-trafficking movement.

Special note: Everyone who signs our pledge, submits a photo, or signs up to become a member of our grassroots network from this page, will automatically be entered into a drawing to win a complementary copy of the DVD Not My Life. Five winners will be announced on VDAY, February 14.

On November 15, Polaris Project hosted the first ever National State Legislators Conference Call on Human Trafficking. More than 40 legislators from 26 states joined a conference call and webinar put together by Polaris Project to collaborate, share ideas, and advocate for anti-trafficking legislation. Each state has taken its own approach to combatting human trafficking and the purpose of the call was to give legislators an opportunity to learn more from each other on what has worked and the challenges others have confronted in successfully carrying anti-trafficking legislation.

Executive Director and CEO Bradley Myles provided an introductory statement on the need for strong local action against trafficking. Then, legislators that worked closely with Polaris Project offered their insight and guidance to veteran and freshmen legislators on how to pass anti-trafficking legislation. [Read more →]

As the seasons change, we begin unpacking boxes of coats, sweaters, scarves, and boots in preparation. However, this seasonal routine is not easy for survivors like Claudia*. When Claudia came to the United States a few years ago, she came with very few possessions and was forced to work in the hospitality industry. Luckily, she was able to get out of her trafficking situation and was put in contact with a Polaris Project case manager. Our staff was able to place both her and her child in a transitional housing unit and provide them with the services they needed. [Read more →]

On Saturday, October 22, 2011 more than 2,000 people came out to walk against human trafficking. They raised more than $80,000 [and still counting] to support anti-trafficking organizations like Polaris Project. [Read more →]

Join Polaris Project for the third annual Stop Modern Slavery Walk on the National Mall Constitution Gardens (Constitution Avenue NW and 19th St. NW, Washington, D.C.)
 On Saturday, October 22, 2011 (8:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.) thousands of activists from the D.C. metropolitan area will walk together to stomp out slavery! There will be an information fair, guest speakers, and live musical performances.

As one of the few annual events centered around human trafficking in the D.C. metropolitan area, the Stop Modern Slavery walk is a great opportunity to stand united with the anti-trafficking community against modern-day slavery. Individuals that choose to participate at the walk can share their experience with the world live from the walk by contributing to the #smswalk tag on Twitter. We hope to see you there, so grab some friends and sign up for the Polaris Project team today!

Here are 3 things you can do to spread the word about the upcoming walk:

1. Share this blog with your friends!
2. Tweet about the walk on twitter – don’t forget to use #smswalk in your tweet! Here’s a sample:
   Join @Polaris_Project and @DCSMS for the 2011 #smswalk! Sign up today: http://ht.ly/64sl
3. Talk about it on Facebook! Here’s some sample text
   Do you know that slavery still exists? Join me at the 2011 Stop Modern Slavery Walk and help stomp out slavery! I’ll be walking with the Polaris Project team. Will you join me? http://ht.ly/64slS

We hope to see you there.

The Against Our Will Campaign is a partnership between mtvU, Free the Slaves, Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS), and Polaris Project. This campaign is dedicated to ending modern-day slavery through a series of on-air, online, and real world initiatives.

The Slavery Footprint Campus Challenge is a way for students to get involved with the fight against human trafficking by raising awareness, decreasing demands for goods and services provided by trafficking victims, and supporting organizations that are fighting modern-day slavery. The Challenge calls for students to compete against each other to spread information about slave labor and encourage brands and business owners to embrace slave-free products.

Assisting students in this campaign is an app called Made in a Free World that can be used to learn about the impact of slave labor in our lives. This app reveals the surprising prevalence of slave labor by surveying the user about goods and products that they may use everyday and giving them a personal “slavery footprint.” The survey highlights the astounding number of products that are developed using slave labor such as clothing and smart phones. In fact, slave labor is so dominant in today’s products that it is virtually impossible for someone’s footprint to be zero.

But, there is good news: the site is an e-activist’s dream that allows users to petition companies to address slave labor in their supply chains and to spread the word about this site through social networking sites. At the end of 2011, the 10 students who have shown the most dedication to the Slavery Footprint Campus Challenge will be rewarded with a trip to mtvU’s Woodie Awards.

If you would like to participate in our survey or want to learn more about mtvU and the Against Our Will Campaign click here.

Part I of this two-part blog series discussed three websites that can help you be a socially responsible consumer. Here are three more sites that sell goods made by survivors of human trafficking or that use fashion as a way to educate the public about human trafficking. [Read more →]

The Summer 2011 Fellows decided to take to the streets to get the word out about modern slavery. Armed with a box of chalk and a bunch of facts, we chalked up a D.C. sidewalk, grabbing pedestrians’ attentions with our colorful mosaic of facts, statistics, and ways to help.

Interested in chalking it up in your community? All you need is some chalk and a stretch of sidewalk you’ve checked with the local police is okay to write on. You can find ideas of facts and statistics on our website. Once you start chalking, don’t be surprised if people want to learn more about the issue and hear ways they can get involved. And you don’t have to stick to just writing facts- you can decorate the street with drawings, blast music, hand out the national human trafficking hotline number, or anything else you can think of!

We’d love to see your efforts at Chalking It Up to stop slavery!

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Through the creation of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, the U.S. positioned itself as a leader in the global fight against human trafficking. This significant piece of legislation made human trafficking a federal crime, formed agencies and task forces to address human trafficking domestically and internationally, defined the strict penalties human traffickers face, created the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, and initiated various measures to prevent trafficking, protect victims, and prosecute traffickers. Since its original passage, the bill has been reauthorized three times, each time reaffirming our nation’s commitment to eliminating modern-day slavery and strengthening our ability to fight it.

The 2011 TVPRA has been introduced in the Senate by a bi-partisan coalition made up of Senators Leahy (VT), Boxer (CA), Brown (MA), Cardin (MD), Cochran (MS), Feinstein (CA), Gillibrand (NY), Kerry (MA), Rubio (FL), and Wyden (OR). However, we need to build momentum to ensure the bill gets passed. [Read more →]

As consumers we face countless choices for the goods and services we can buy. However, for socially conscious consumers who are aware of the frequent intersections between human trafficking and corporate supply chains, there is the added desire of purchasing goods that are socially responsible. But how do we really know how things are produced? [Read more →]