Category — Activism

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 →]

The survivors of human trafficking that we serve often leave their situations with very few possessions. To assist them in rebuilding their lives, Polaris Project provides our clients with basic necessities. I want to share the story of two of our clients that need your help now.

Meet Caley*. When she was just 14 years old she met an older boy, Troy, who told her she was beautiful and that he could take her away from the group home she hated. As a foster care child, Caley had always wanted to be loved and cared for and Troy promised that he could do that, or so she thought. She ran away from her group home with Troy, only later to find out that he was really a 24-year-old violent pimp. Within just a couple of weeks he forced her into prostitution and told her if she didn’t do as he said he would beat her. Five years later, Caley met a case manager from Polaris Project and began receiving services. She’s currently receiving comprehensive case management, therapy, job training, and is expecting a baby boy any day now.

[Read more →]

Slavery in agriculture has a long history in America.  It was perceived as a vital component of the economy during colonial years and nearly caused the disintegration of the United States during the Civil War.  The first abolitionists worked tirelessly to demonstrate that the economic sustainability of this young country was not dependent on slave labor, and that the people subjected to slavery were not, fundamentally, deserving of that treatment. [Read more →]

We’re unleashing a new series on the North Star Blog: Tip Tuesday. Each Tuesday for the next few months, we will write about different types of human trafficking in the United States. We hope that you’ll tune in to learn the signs of these types of trafficking. [Read more →]

When I was in London last April, I walked into a local convenience store for a chocolate fix to help relieve some jet lag.  I browsed through options for chocolate, looking for bars that I wouldn’t necessarily find back home in the United States.  My scanning stopped when my eyes fixed on a Cadbury Dairy Milk bar that looked like this:

Here were my immediate thoughts:  Cadbury?  Fair trade?  When did this happen?  This is so exciting! Oh, but why don’t I see the little Fair Trade logo on the Cadbury eggs?

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Part I of this blog discussed two of the factors that played a significant role in the passing of anti-human trafficking legislation in the Commonwealth of Virginia: the Change makers and a bi-partisan coalition. In this entry, I will go on to discuss two equally important reasons for these monumental changes.

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Dire does not quite describe the situation we faced when we first began trying to pass anti-human trafficking legislation in the Commonwealth of Virginia. For years we worked to establish a strong legal framework for combating human trafficking. Sometimes we were successful, other times we weren’t. My predecessors successfully navigated difficult waters to help criminalize abduction for the purpose of forced labor, as well as extend asset forfeiture to vehicles used to traffic children. These were no minor feats and took countless hours of hard work, dedication, and passion on the part of many. Despite these successes we were still plagued by our inability to pass strong sex trafficking legislation and provide effective assistance to survivors of human trafficking. Another equally pressing problem in the Commonwealth was the revelation in the Crime Commission Report that none of the statutes currently used to arrest and prosecute traffickers had been used. While there is no one magic item that helped us pass paradigm-shifting anti-human trafficking legislation this year, I do think our success can be attributed to several noteworthy factors:

[Read more →]