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Archive for the ‘activism’ Category

Genesis: Overcoming the nightmare of American sex trafficking

Posted in activism, americas, awareness, children, families, human goods original reporting, prevention, sex, united states, video on March 2, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

Genesis Ramirez was 15 years old when she turned her first trick.  The following years blended together in a traumatizing series of rapes, beatings, stabbings, miscarriages, and addictions.  Now, at 18, Genesis has pulled herself out of the abyss of Chicago’s sex trade and is trying to forge a life with integrity for the sake [...]

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Cuckoo for cocoa: Valentine’s chocolate in the age of unfair trade

Posted in activism, africa, americas, awareness, children, consumption, corporate responsibility, fair trade, food, labor, production chains, united states on February 13, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

(image by the International Labor Rights Forum)
The absurdity of the fact that many of us in the first world show our love for one another with products produced by the blood, sweat, and tears of others ought to give all of us pause.  Valentine’s Day offers a unique opportunity to probe into the reality of [...]

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Make the connections: Debt, action, and the “free” market

Posted in activism, debt, global, global economics, haiti, make the connections, natural disasters, policy on February 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

(image by Chris Coady)
There’s real hope for Haiti, and it’s not what you’d expect
From Johann Hari and The Independent/UK:
When people live so close to the edge, even small price increases can break them.
In the weeks after a disaster like the Haiti earthquake, journalists always search for an upbeat twist to the tale. You know it [...]

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Party time: Searching for prostituted children in Miami’s jubilation

Posted in activism, children, prevention, sex, sporting events, united states on February 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

(t-shirt worn by anti-trafficking volunteers in Miami)
Millions of football fans are celebrating the biggest American sporting victory of the year tonight.  But in the alleys of Miami, host of this year’s Super Bowl, just a handful of social workers, police, and volunteers are roaming around in the shadows, looking for underage girls who might have [...]

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Make the connections: Exploitation, consumption, and change

Posted in activism, awareness, consumption, global, make the connections, policy, production chains, video on February 6, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

From Annie Leonard and Yes Magazine:
I’ve spent much of the past two decades visiting factories where our stuff is made and dumps where it is disposed of around the world. After years of seeing firsthand the often hidden environmental, social, and health impacts of all the stuff we consume, I’ve developed a sort of neurosis: [...]

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Good news from Haiti: Journalist Ben Skinner returns a life-saving favor

Posted in activism, americas, haiti, natural disasters, refugees, video on January 21, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Haitian anti-slavery activist Bill Nathan was taking a break from his work with abandoned and former slave children, when the earthquake hurtled him from the seventh-floor garden of the orphanage.
Ben Skinner, an anti-slavery activist and journalist, writes in Time:
Two minutes later, the quake smashed open the building, and the top three floors pitched northward, hurling [...]

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A Day for Awareness, and Agitation: A message from E. Benjamin Skinner

Posted in activism, awareness, global on January 11, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

Friends:
In 2007, our national lawmakers, bless their hearts, made today National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. Last week, our president, to his undying credit, proclaimed this month National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month.
Big deal.
America spends more money in a single day to fight the trade in illegal drugs than we do in an entire year [...]

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The system or the girl: IJM and the raiding debate

Posted in activism, asia, cambodia, children, global, india, philippines, policy, prevention, prosecution, sex, video on October 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

This month, The Nation publishes the second in a two-part series on attempts to combat sex trafficking in the U.S. and abroad.  The first article, published in September, profiles (oftentimes quite critically) the work of the Christian NGO, International Justice Mission (IJM).
IJM works on a variety of issues, including not only the pursuit of freedom [...]

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Making noise: How to raise awareness in your own backyard

Posted in activism, americas, awareness, human goods original reporting, united states, video on May 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

Chicago’s MOSAIC group threw an event to call attention to the issue of human trafficking.  Check out the video for ideas on how to do something in your own neighborhood.

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The Countertraffickers: from Moldova to Dubai and back

Posted in activism, europe, global, middle east, moldova, policy, sex on May 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

William Finnegan’s “The Countertraffickers,” is a compelling account, in this week’s New Yorker, of one crusader at the Office of International Migration’s Moldovan office, and what she does to rescue trafficked women.

It’s lengthy, but worth it, especially to gain insight into the utterly chilling world of forced prostitution in the city-state of Dubai (which seems [...]

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