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.

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 →]

Organizations and community groups from across the country have traveled to Arlington, TX to participate in the anti-trafficking awareness events surrounding the Super Bowl.  Throughout the week, events have been held to educate the community and to reach out to potential victims of human trafficking.

Because of the clandestine nature of this crime, we must bring awareness to community members, supply them with the resources to recognize potential trafficking situations, and understand how to increase public awareness.  Significantly, 40% of the calls received at the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) last year were from community members, and 16 percent of these calls were tips.  Since December 2007, more than 4,000 potential victims have been referenced in calls to the NHTRC. [Read more →]

As millions of American families hit the roads for summer vacation and take breaks at truck stops to refuel and grab snacks, they may unknowingly come across human trafficking. Commercial truck stops are locations where pimps compel women and girls to engage in prostitution. We are not talking about state owned or state operated welcome centers or rest stops where there is often law enforcement presence (e.g. state patrol). Pimps are taking advantage of locations where there is a large concentration of male truck drivers who are on the road and may be willing to purchase sex. Moreover, these places allow pimps to move the women and girls with ease to other locations as a way of evading law enforcement. Pimps may advertise or have the women and girls advertise via CB radio, or in many cases have the women and girls solicit by going from truck to truck looking for customers. The pimps are also familiar with “party row” where truck drivers park their rigs in the farthest end of a lot with the intention of purchasing sex.

[Read more →]

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 →]

I used to work in the House of Representatives as a leadership aide.  Hortatory and symbolic resolutions abound.  One really stands out, introduced by Congresswoman Laura Richardson of Los Angeles. [Read more →]

As I waited in line to make a purchase at Barnes & Noble today, I started scanning over the items in the “Gift Ideas” display. Right next to a Harry Potter wizard kit and a Hello Kitty jewelry kit, I saw “Pimp My Pumpkin” emblazoned on a small shiny box. [Read more →]