Category — Corporate Social Accountability

I am excited to share this major announcement with you. As you can see from the below press release, Google.org is providing a multi-year grant to Polaris Project, International Justice Mission, and Slavery Footprint to implement a unified initiative focused on  eradicating modern-day slavery.

This is a significant endorsement of the impact that all three organizations have achieved in holding traffickers accountable, helping survivors rebuild their lives and increasing public action against trafficking. We know that no single organization can achieve these goals alone. By combining our unique roles and expertise, we are building a powerful force that will mobilize millions of Americans in support of a world where everyone is guaranteed the fundamental human right of freedom.
This three-year initiative aims to achieve the following measurable outcomes:

1. Improve legislation that protects human trafficking victims and holds traffickers accountable;
2. Increase government funding for victims’ services and greater law enforcement capacity to fight human trafficking;
3. Provide simple steps that Americans can take to help eradicate human trafficking, such as calling the national human trafficking hotline at 1-888-373-7888; and
4. Increase demand for “slave-free” products.

Through aggressive, metrics-oriented activities, we will also bring a unique element of analytics and empiricism while tracking these outcomes.

I hope you are as enthusiastic over this announcement as we are.  This new grant will help to amplify and accelerate the impact of our work against modern-day slavery. We are thankful for Google.org’s generous $1.8 million multi-year grant, as well as the ongoing support you have shown to Polaris Project. Together, we are helping to build a nationwide network that is transforming the way communities work to end human trafficking.

If you would like to support Polaris Project’s vision for a world without slavery, please donate at www.polarisproject.org/donate.

Press Release
Google Blog Announcement
CNN
ABC
PR Newswire
NY Times Blog

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 brochure is available in English, Korean, and Mandarin Chinese

The issue of illegal brothels posing as legitimate massage parlors is tied to Polaris Project’s first moments as an organization.  Our founders, Katherine Chon and Derek Ellerman, became passionate about the issue of human trafficking after learning about one of these brothels in Rhode Island, which operated a couple blocks from their college apartments.  Over the past nine years, our organization has focused on combating all forms of human trafficking, but we’ve always maintained an expertise and understanding of this particular network. [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?

[Read more →]

Last week craigslist shut down the Adult Services section in cities in the United States. However, the Erotic Services section is still up in the rest of the world. With more than 250 pages international pages generating nearly 25,000 ads a day, craigslist has neglected its responsibilities as a global company by keeping these sections available for users worldwide.

Today, Polaris Project and more than 100 other experts from the anti-trafficking field signed onto a letter asking Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster to shut down all of the Adult and Erotic Services sections around the world. You can also do the same by signing Change.org’s petition. Although craigslist has been silent on this issue during the past week, we eagerly wait to hear what their next steps will be. Tomorrow a representative from craigslist will be testifying before the House Judiciary Crime Subcommittee. Perhaps after tomorrow’s hearing we will get the answer to our question – what will they do now?

The holiday gift season is upon us again.  The propensity of businesses to launch it earlier and earlier is heightened this year by nerves about tough economic times.  In the holiday season, it is said that to give is better than to receive.  An important way to give to the neediest is to we insist corporate actors do not wittingly or unwittingly fuel the abuses of human trafficking, forced labor, and the worst forms of child labor – today’s forms of slavery. [Read more →]

This week I authored a blog “Private Sector Leverages Comparative Advantage to Fight Slavery” for the Hudson Institute. Please see below for an excerpt: [Read more →]

In December 2008, I had the honor of attending the signing of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act reauthorization – named after British abolitionist William Wilberforce – in the Oval Office. When the original 2000 Act was revised by Congress in 2005 our legislators mandated that the Department of Labor create a list of products made by forms of human trafficking: forced labor and onerous child labor. [Read more →]

Before Polaris Project Japan opened its doors in 2005, we conducted a series of focus groups on various communities’ understandings of human trafficking. When it came to sex trafficking, I was shocked when a number of Japanese male respondents openly talked about their comfort in engaging in commercial sex with children. At first, I hoped those responses were outliers. Unfortunately, as our work began in Japan, I quickly absorbed the reality of how challenging it would be to combat child sex trafficking in a country where the broader commercial sex industry makes up 1 percent of its GNP (equaling Japan’s entire national defense budget!). [Read more →]

My last blog was about the 9th annual global Trafficking in Persons Report rolled out this week by the Secretary of State.   One of the most important aspects of the rollout is not the Report.  It’s the concurrent Report on the fight against human trafficking within the United States compiled by the Attorney-General. [Read more →]