Join the movement against modern slavery! Free the Slaves is looking for motivated volunteers to assist in our Washington, DC headquarters. Volunteers will have the opportunity to contribute concretely to our mission and to learn about the ins-and-outs of managing a global nonprofit organization.
Tasks will be tailored to volunteers’ interests and qualifications—we have work suited for high school seniors and experienced grant officers, and everything in between. Staff will provide training and mentoring for anyone interested to learn about international nonprofit management.
Volunteer tasks may include:
- Planning fundraising, awareness-raising, and academic events
- Assisting with research and implementation of new institutional policies and procedures
- Researching and monitoring slavery and FTS in the international press
- Researching our donor base and potential new donors
- Assisting with communications with existing donors and funders
- Translating academic reports to and from French
- Organizing and archiving Free the Slaves’ historical records
- Managing a donor database and other office logistics
We’re asking for a regular commitment of at least 8 hours per week, for at least 3 months, in our office in downtown Washington, DC.
Applications are available here, and please contact us at blog@freetheslaves.net with any questions.
About Us:
Free the Slaves (FTS) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to ending modern slavery worldwide. Founded in 2000, FTS’ approach to eradicating slavery is rooted in a belief in the power of grassroots social change. We build partnerships with organizations working to eradicate slavery in their own communities around the world; current partners include local anti-slavery organizations in Ghana, Uganda, Haiti, Brazil, India, Nepal and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This partnership work complements and informs our work in the areas of policy, research, slave-free trade and communications, as we strive to eradicate modern day slavery and trafficking. In addition, FTS runs the Freedom Awards, a major annual awards program to recognize organizations and individuals who are demonstrating effective methods for ending slavery. Headquartered in Washington DC, Free the Slaves’ has a satellite office in Los Angeles, California, and operations around the world.
Editor’s note: Alison Leuchtenburg, outreach intern at Free the Slaves was leader of Team Free the Slaves for the Stop Modern Slavery Walk this past Saturday. Below is her report from the event:
Congratulations to our partner DC Stop Modern Slavery for organizing a terrific Walk Against Modern Slavery on Saturday. The weather was perfect, and the turnout was fantastic with over 2000 registered walkers. A special thanks to all of you who joined the Free the Slaves walk team. I was glad to meet so many of you at the resource fair after the walk.
It was truly amazing to see so many people and organizations involved in the fight against modern slavery. Volunteers held signs and shouted slogans along the walk, and there was even one man dressed as Abraham Lincoln.
The resource fair had some great speakers, including Freedom Awards laureate Tina Frundt, who was inspirational as always. There was also live music with Crash Boom Omar of the band Crash Boom Bang, and Lamont Hiebert who is also the co-founder of Love146.
This was a real visual demonstration of how far we’ve come in raising awareness, with over 2000 walkers and more than 20 organizations, all doing their part to fight slavery. Saturday was a powerful sign that the tide is turning, and together, we will end slavery forever.
Even though slavery is outlawed in India, millions are enslaved, many in bonded labor, unaware of their rights. Photo by Robin Romano.
Free the Slaves is looking for Volunteers in the DC metro area to be a part of making history. We have been working with our partners in India to conduct household surveys on debt-bondage. And now, we need volunteers to help sift through all this data.
So on Saturday, November 6 (which is, coincidentally the day before our annual Freedom Awards, taking place in Los Angeles), we are holding Data Entry Day!
What, may you ask, is Data Entry Day? It’s a day when DC area volunteers can be a part of the anti-slavery movement, by helping to bring to light vital statistics that will show which kinds of programs create a sustainable decrease in—and even eradication of—slavery.
When: Saturday, November 6
Time: 10 am to 5 pm. If you can’t make it for the whole day, we would still love for you to help for as long as you can
Place: Location to be decided. It will be somewhere in central Washington, D.C.
Lunch: Probably pizza. Maybe ice cream, too.
This is a very exciting and ground breaking project. Free the Slaves partners Manav Sansadhan Evam Mahila Vikas Sansthan (MSEMVS) and Diocesan Development and Welfare Society (DDWS) are currently conducting surveys in two states: Uttar Pradesh and Bihar—two regions where slavery rates are extremely high. MSEMVS and DDWS both work to eradicate slavery through holistic, community-wide methods. Combined, they have liberated over 1,500 people from bondage.
Read: ‘Varanasi, India: What Does a Free Village Look Like?’
What will this data help us accomplish? We will be able to understand how a community becomes slavery free, and to measure the societal gains that freedom brings.
Contact us today, to volunteer!
Email us at blog@freetheslaves.net with the following information:
Name
Email address
Phone number
Availability (can you come on the 6th all day, part of the day or are you interested in helping on another day if necessary?)
Please be advised you will need to bring a laptop!
Photo by Jason Rogers via Flickr
The count down is on! The Stop Modern Slavery Walk is happening THIS weekend! Will you walk with us?
We are aiming for 50 people to join Team Free the Slaves. We’ve got 11 so far. But we need more! Show your support for the anti-slavery movement—and for the anti-slavery work we do in seven countries. Slavery can end. Join us in the movement!
HANG OUT WITH US AT MAD HATTER IN DUPONT CIRCLE!
For those of you in the DC metro area, stop by the Mad Hatter on Wednesday the 20th of October for free drinks and appetizers—and sign up for the Stop Modern Slavery Walk!
Where: The Mad Hatter in Dupont Circle
When: Wednesday, October 20, 6:00—9:00 pm
What: Hang out and sign up for Team Free the Slaves for the DC Stop Modern Slavery Walk taking place Saturday, October 23
Download the flyer here (PDF)!
If you can’t make it out for a cozy drink and some nibbles, go online to sign up for the walk on Saturday! Go to http://walk.stopmodernslavery.org/, and register. Select “Join a team,” and pick “Free the Slaves”!
For more information on Team Free the Slaves, contact us. See you at the National Mall!
Shivanna (second from left) and his family were bonded laborers in India. But with the help of anti-slavery organization JEEVIKA, they are now free.
Washington, D.C.—At a hearing held by the House Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday, the State Department’s anti-trafficking Ambassador Luis CdeBaca recommended that slavery eradication efforts take a more victim centered approach. Survivors of modern day slavery should not be treated like criminals, he said.
The hearing, titled “Out of the Shadows: The Global Fight Against Human Trafficking,” took a broad based look at human trafficking around the world and what was being done to combat it.
MODERN SLAVERY IS ‘SUBTLE’
Slavery is often difficult to detect. And millions are vulnerable to it. Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) said there is only a “thin line between being short on your paycheck and being held bondage.”
Neha Misra of the Solidarity Center’s Migration and Human Trafficking program said media and policy focus on commercial sexual exploitation has caused enslaved laborers to be overlooked.
“In 2010, a slave is not necessarily a person in chains or shackles,” she said. “Modern day slavery can be much more subtle. Trafficking victims toil in factories that produce products that are exported to the U.S. [They] harvest vegetables and process food that ends up on our dining room tables,… pick crops or mine minerals that are raw materials in the products we buy.”
SLAVERY IN ASIA
Asian countries and their Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report rankings were at the center of much of the discussion.
Representative Ed Royce (R-CA) showed his disappointment that Cambodia was moved up from Tier 3—the lowest possible ranking—to Tier 2, saying it was a “slap in the face to the thousands of victims” still enslaved. David S. Abramowitz, Director of Policy and Government Relations at Humanity United spoke about his work in Nepal, where 90 percent of migrant workers are trafficked into labor and sex slavery.
Read about Free the Slaves’ work in Nepal
Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) shared stories of North Korean defectors trafficked in China. He criticized China’s one child policy, saying it contributed to the trafficking of women into forced marriages. He pointed to an investigative article in The Economist titled “The War on Baby Girls” that said 100 million girls are missing, due to sex selective abortions in China and Northwestern India.
And yet, China and India are Tier 2 countries. Smith urged CdeBaca to re-assess these rankings, saying that neither country complies with the minimum standards prescribed by the Trafficking Victims Protections Act.
MOST OF THE WORLD’S SLAVES ARE IN INDIA
India’s caste system drives millions into slavery, said Dr. Beryl Ann D’Souza, Medical Director of the Dalit Freedom Network. “Of the 27 million people around the world that the UN considers human slaves in the trafficking industry, the UN recognizes that most live in India and most are Dalits,” she said. Dalits are the lowest level of India’s caste system. While slavery is illegal in India, centuries of social pressure keep many dalits in bonded labor.
Attention all Washington, DC freedom fighters!
The DC Stop Slavery Walk is having a happy hour get together for all partners tomorrow at Mad Hatter.
Time: 6:30pm
Place: Mad Hatter, 1319 Connecticut Avenue N.W. (Dupont Circle Metro), Washington, DC 20036
RSVP: via Facebook
Bring friends and family! We’ll be signing up people to walk for Team Free the Slaves!
The Stop Modern Slavery Walk at the National Mall in Washington, DC is right around the corner. And Free the Slaves is looking for people to join our team!
If you are on DC on Saturday, October 23, we want you to walk with us. To take part, go to http://walk.stopmodernslavery.org/, and register. Select “Join a team,” and pick “Free the Slaves”! Bring friends, neighbors, families, distant acquaintances, bitter enemies—all are welcome.
Joanna Castle Miller, on her blog Marginalized People wrote a piece today about why she plans to walk against slavery:
“It is to join physically with the many men, women and children who are currently wandering against their wills.
While we walk the streets getting somewhere important, window shopping, working out, goofing off, or even raising money for a great cause, we often forget that wandering for pleasure is a luxury.
In walking for marginalized people, we can act out with our bodies the migrant life.”
For more information on Team Free the Slaves, contact us. See you at the National Mall!
An aerial view of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. On October 23, thousands will gather to walk against slavery.
Modern day slavery is the human rights issue of our time. It’s not just a foreign issue—slavery happens right here, in the U.S. Thousands are trafficked into the country every year, and countless more are trafficked within the U.S.
Take a stand against this egregious human rights violation. Join us in the DC Stop Modern Slavery Walk (SMS Walk), scheduled for October 23. Thousands will gather at the National Mall to raise awareness about slavery, and raise money for organizations working to eradicate it.
Free the Slaves is among several anti-slavery organizations that have partnered with the SMS Walk. FTS Freedom Award winner Tina Frundt will be among the speakers.
Stand up to slavery! Register for the walk here.
Craigslist representatives testified at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on sex trafficking of minors this morning. It was the first time the website made a detailed public statement about the recent take down of their “Adult Services” ads. Craigslist removed these ads under pressure from human rights groups who said they facilitated the sex trafficking of minors.
2010 Free the Slaves Freedom Award winner Tina Frundt spoke at the hearing. A survivor of childhood sex trafficking, Frundt is now the founder of Courtney’s House, a Washington, D.C.-based shelter for survivors of sex slavery.
In her statement, Frundt said:
“The Internet has played a part in the sex trafficking of every client at Courtney’s House. Furthermore, every pimp has a MySpace page. Traffickers are learning how to exploit the Internet using Craigslist and Backpage.com, as well as chat rooms where they become as familiar as a classmate to the girls and boys having lengthy ‘conversations’ with them every night safely at home. Something must be done to restore safety to the Internet.”
Craiglist sent two representatives to the hearing: William Clinton Powell, director of customer and law enforcement relations, and Elizabeth McDougall, the website’s legal council. Powell stated that Craigslist has permanently removed the adult services ads from their U.S. site.
McDougall’s statement reiterated the argument that removing the “Adult Services” ads from Craigslist will drive sex trafficking further underground, making it harder to trace and prosecute:
“‘Migration of the relatively small percentage of total U.S. adult services advertising that had been posted on Craigslist to less socially responsible venues uninterested in best practices is an unfortunate step backward in the fight against trafficking and exploitation… In Craigslist, law enforcement and NGO advocates had a highly responsive partner that listened to and was willing to meet with all concerned parties, and worked collaboratively to develop and implement best practices for minimizing such harms in the context of adult services advertising.’” (quote gleaned from Wired.com)
Read Tina Frundt’s testimony in full after the jump. Or, download the PDF here.
Under a barrage of media scrutiny and accusations of facilitating sex trafficking, Craigslist quietly took down the adult services section of their website last week. Other than emblazoning a bold “censored” bar over the adult services link on their website—which they took down a few days later without statement—Craigslist has been largely silent on the matter.
But on Wednesday, Craigslist will break its silence at a hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security. The hearing will explore the role of online ad services in the exploitation and trafficking of minors. Craigslist’s Director of Customer Service and Law Enforcement Relations, William Clint Powell will testify alongside federal lawmakers and representatives from law enforcement and human rights groups.
Among the panelists will be Tina Frundt, winner of the 2010 Frederick Douglass Freedom Award. Frundt—herself a survivor of childhood sex slavery—is the founder Courtney’s House, an organization that helps sex trafficking victims transition back into the community.
Read Tina Frundt’s journey from slavery to survival.
Some have called Craigslist the “Walmart of online sex trafficking,” saying the website facilitates illegal activities, and does not properly safe guard the public. But others argue that censoring the adult services ads on Craigslist—by far the most popular personal ads website in the country—will drive sex trafficking further underground, making it harder to trace and prosecute.
