Basic Human Rights and a dignified life

Meet Kal pona Akter and Babul Akhter. Kalpona and Babul are former child laborers who worked in the garment industry in Bangladesh and now run the Bangladesh Center for Workers Solidarity (BCWS). At 2 a.m. on August 13, Kalpona and Babul were awakened by 20 police officers and arrested as part of a government crackdown on workers and labor rights advocates who have been working to end exploitation in garment factories. They are both still in prison today despite international outcry. This Labor Day weekend, there are new, easy, and critical ways you can take action to support the rights of the workers who make our clothes. Last month, I wrote about how Kalpona and Babul's organiza...

Children can be unintentionally smart and incredibly profound, including while talking about heavy topics like slavery and freedom. Free the Slaves asked several children at the Agape International Spiritual Center their thoughts on slavery and freedom. Their answers might just surprise you. Their adorableness won't. We often think human trafficking and modern-day slavery are topics that are too challenging or too complex for children. As adults, we struggle with conceptualizing and understanding these issues. Modern-day slavery as an issue is all at once historical, political, moral, economic, and social. When we discuss it, we often end up having loaded and controversial conversations ...

Federal prosecutors in New York City are fighting allegations that they allowed a 15-year-old girl to be forced into prostitution while they investigated the Gambino crime family's human trafficking activities. A defense lawyer for the Gambinos, however, claims the government allowed the teen to be exploited in order to make their case. Did the FBI allow child sex trafficking? A few months ago, the infamous Gambino crime family was caught pimping kids on Craigslist, a move that many considered a low point, even for them. The bust was the result of a long government investigation, which included the participation of a cooperating witness who worked for the Gambinos. According to the wi...

What's a tourist to do when accused of repeatedly buying a 13-year-old for sex? Why, "make up" an excuse, of course. Forty-year-old Atsushi Kato of Japan is in court for purchasing a young girl several times in a Cambodian brothel. But because the girl was wearing makeup, he says, he really had no idea she was a child. The makeup made her look 18, at least. Arrested in September 2009 after visiting the rehabilitation center where the girl was then staying, Kato is now being charged for human trafficking and sexual exploitation, with 7 to 15 years of prison time in his future if found guilty. Additionally, he would owe the victim herself $6,000 and face deportation after serving his sen...

Spanish police busted a massive sex trafficking ring this week and were surprised at what they found: 64 men and transgender persons trafficked into commercial sex. And if you've ever doubted that a man can be raped or forced to engage in sex acts against his will, then this case proves an important point. The men and transgender people were brought to Spain from Brazil by way of Luxembourg. A few of them knew they were traveling to Spain to work in the commercial sex industry, but thought they would be controlling their conditions. Most of the men, however, had agreed to take jobs as waiters or dancers. When they arrived in Spain, traffickers told them their travel had racked up debts...

The Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) has just made an announcement of massive proportion: they have pledged to fight the heavy use of child soldiers in southern Sudan by promising to free all child soldiers within their ranks by November 2010. To fulfill their promise, the SPLA has established a special unit to ensure success, and so far, more than 20,000 children that were estimated to serve in the SPLA's ranks have been freed since a peace agreement was signed in 2005. Approximately 900 still serve, according to U.N. estimates, but the SPLA estimates that it still holds onto a few thousand. Since the start of Sudan's civil war, the SPLA has recruited young children by force...

Craigslist may be the most famous facilitator of online child sex trafficking these days, but Backpage.com, owned by Village Voice Media, is working to catch up. In the past week alone, two human trafficking operations were busted for selling teens on Backpage.com. It's time to tell Village Voice Media and Backpage.com that facilitating and profiting from child sex trafficking is not acceptable. Earlier this week a Georgia man was arrested for pimping two 17-year-old girls around the Nashville area. Detectives responded to a suspicious ad on Backpage and drove to a motel. There, they found the teens and their 37-year-old pimp, as well as a laptop computer, likely used to post the onl...

Apparently the U.K. just isn't that interested in fighting human trafficking and modern-day slavery in their country. They've told the rest of Europe "no thanks" when it comes to joining a coalition to combat human trafficking across the continent. It's a move that not only might alienate their neighbors, but act as an open invitation to pimps and traffickers to move to the U.K. The British have a special right within the E.U. to opt in or out of specific measures decided on by the whole of Europe. Sadly, they've chosen to exercise this "opt out" right to avoid being part of a coalition that could take great strides toward reducing human trafficking. Among other things, the coalition wou...

Many of us have heard about the fabled silk road that dates back to B.C. and connected trade routes across Asia to Europe and Northern Africa. In Uzbekistan, farmers who produce silk have followed a long road of exploitation that continues today. Similar to the country's lucrative cotton industry , the trade in Uzbek silk is controlled by the state. The government dictates what farmers will grow and buys directly from farmers to export their crops. Farmers are required to meet production quotas for their silk or they could face fines, loss of their land leases, or even violence. Payment is often delayed and the wages are too low for families to make a fair living -- even while the s...

This week, Sri Lankan doctors removed 13 out of 24 nails and five needles from deep within the flesh of LP Ariyawathie, who was working in Saudi Arabia as a domestic worker. She claims they were driven there by her employers in Saudi Arabia, as punishment for not performing tasks up to par. The Saudi government claims she is lying. But Ariyawathie is not the first woman to travel to Saudi Arabia for work and return tortured, nor will she likely be the last. Ariyawathie traveled from Sri Lanka to Saudi Arabia in March to work for a family as a domestic servant, hoping to earn enough money to help her sick daughter back home. But working in Saudi Arabia turned out to be hell. Every time ...

A recent poll of Clark County voters, the county in which Las Vegas sits, shows they don't want to legalize prostitution or marijuana. The pot provision was shot down because of the fear that high tourists might gamble less. But legalized brothels were rejected, in part, because voters thought they would actually hurt the local economy. The poll, conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, found that 64% of residents were opposed to legal brothels in Las Vegas as tools to stimulate tourism. A popular argument for the legalization and regulation of prostitution has long been that the industry would stimulate the local economy. However, University of Nevada, Las Vegas professor Bill ...

Are you sick of wasting your money on useless plastic crap made in overseas sweatshops? Do you want to use your money to vote for something you actually support -- a hopeful future for former slaves? Then check out Change.org's weekly Red Light Special. Once a week, I'll be bringing you a product that heals rather than hurts, because the proceeds go to help victims of human trafficking. Shop Red Light Specials to be part of the solution, instead of part of the useless crap problem. This Week's Red Light Special ... Nepali Beaded Bag If you're looking for a way to make a statement at a fancy party, wedding, or other formal event, then check out this awesome beaded bag. Each bag is hand...

Recently, two Honduran sisters traveled to America after being promised jobs as maids for wealthy families in West Palm Beach, Florida. Instead, they were forced to dance in skimpy outfits at clubs in the area. And their story is not unusual. Human trafficking of women and girls at clubs is a serious issue all over the country. Sisters L.M. and E.M. knew cleaning houses would not be glamorous work, but they hoped to make a decent living at it in America. They each agreed to pay $7000 to be smuggled into the country through Texas by a man named Martinez. Once arrived, however, the sisters were handed skimpy outfits and makeup and told they would have to dance at local clubs. When they i...

Emma Watson, the 20-year-old British actress who rose to fame as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films, is apparently more like her on-screen character than other young starlets these days. In addition to finishing up two films and being a student at Brown, the young actress recently traveled to Bangladesh. Why? She wanted to get some hands-on experience with how her Fair Trade clothing line is being produced. Watson has used her acting career to launch into the world of fashion, first as a model, then a designer, and now, as an advocate for eco-friendly and Fair Trade fashion. As part of that, she's endorsing a collection from People Tree , a U.K.-based firm that sells Fair Trad...

Burmese police announced this week that out of the hundreds of human traffickers they have arrested over the past several years, at least 100 of them were once victims. Sadly, trafficking victims becoming traffickers is not unusual. But what makes a person go from victim to trafficker? Most of the 100 victims-turned-traffickers were trafficked from Burma into China and Thailand for forced labor, forced prostitution, or forced marriage. Once discovered, they were shipped back to Burma, sometimes deported, and usually with no compensation. Back in Burma, there were no support services for them, no money for counseling or job training, no help with medical bills or education. The lack of su...

In West Africa, a river of women and girls flows freely from Nigeria through places like Benin and Ghana, and eventually into the Cote d'Ivoire. They're as young as 15, and at the end of the river they all end up in the same place: sexual slavery. And the governments of West Africa are struggling to build dams against this flow of human beings into bondage. According to a recent report by Human Rights Watch , a significant human trafficking path has been carved across West Africa, running from Nigeria to Cote d'Ivoire and including several neighboring countries. The victims are mostly young women and girls, many of them teens, who are lured to Cote d'Ivoire with the promise of jobs as c...

Was slave labor used to make your tires? The tires currently on my car came from Firestone, back in 2007, so slaves were definitely involved. I just didn't know it when I bought them. Now the world knows that Bridgestone/Firestone used slave labor to get rubber for their products thanks to a lawsuit filed by workers. They won , by the way, but labor practices there are still atrocious . Obviously, I can't buy Firestone's tires again, no matter that they're cheap (surprise surprise) and my budget is super small. So how can consumers have peace of mind when we put rubber to the road, knowing our tires weren't made by enslaved children or adults? I decided to go the tried and true...

In a horrific scene this week, Mexican authorities have found 72 dead bodies near the U.S.-Mexico border. They suspect the migrants may have been victims of human trafficking, being smuggled over the border into the U.S. and then forced to sell drugs. But what on earth could kill 72 people, and why? Mexican police are working to identify the bodies, but have already identified men from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Brazil, making the crime an international one. So far police suspect that the men were recruited by organized crime to become drug mules, bringing drugs into the U.S. and then selling them. But why were these 72 men massacred before making it into the U.S.? Most like...

Millions of men, women, and children are enslaved around the world, producing the raw materials that create products we use every day. Slaves pick the cotton that ends up in our t-shirts, mine the tungsten that makes our laptops run, and harvest the cocoa we find so delicious. But two pieces of pending legislation in California could help end the use of slavery in major corporations' supply chains. Will you help make them law ? The proposed legislation would be California state law, but if it passes, the effects will be felt all over the country and all over the world by reducing the market for slave-made goods. The California Supply Chain Transparency Act of 2010 (SB 657) would requ...

Craig Newmark might, in fact, be a magical leprechaun , capable of sifting through thousands of adult service ads per month and weeding out all of those for sex trafficking with a single tip of a jaunty green hat. Hey, he said as much himself on Twitter ... All joking aside, the debate rages on over what, if anything, should be done about the adult services section on Craigslist, and now 17 state attorneys general have stepped forward to tell the classified ad site it's time to pull the section altogether. Attorneys general from Arkansas, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Tex...

So I snuck on the intern login for the blog because I wanted to brag about one of our interns, Nicole. I'm amazed every year with the quality of our Love146 interns. They are intelligent, passionate, capable and can roll with the punches (and jokes) that happen here in the office. Every one of them is a jem. I wanted to highlight a recent project Nicole did. She was (and still is) helping us get ready for the Collective Shout Conference happening this November. She single handedly put together a promo video for the conference! Ok, I'm admittedly not a "techy" person, it's amazing that I can work my mobile phone so after several attempts of trying to embed a video in this blog I have t...