When celebrities step up for a cause it seems that the world pays attention; attention that is often greatly needed. It seems like over the past few years our news stations, Twitter and Facebook timelines have been flooded with Human and Sex Trafficking stories and organizations fighting for a change. According to the Initiative against Sexual Trafficking the average cost of a slave around the world is just $90, basically the cost of a new tire, a good dinner or ladies a pair of shoes equals the cost of a life. Trafficking comes in many forms but primarily involves forcing victims into prostitution, subjecting victims to slavery and using sex victims to create pornography, it is said that upwards of 90% of all child porn on the internet is at the hand of human sex traffickers. According to some estimates, approximately 80% of trafficking involves sexual exploitation! The latest celebrity to speak up on this cause is actress and activist Jada Pinkett Smith who along with her husband Will Smith and daughter Willow urged Congress last month to step up the fight against human trafficking in the U.S. and abroad.
Jada testified during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing that she plans to launch a campaign to raise awareness and spur action against human trafficking and slavery.
“Fighting slavery doesn’t cost a lot of money. The costs of allowing it to exist in our nation and abroad are much higher,” the actress said. “It robs us of the thing we value most, our freedom.”
According to a recent E TV interview Jada Pinkett Smith said her 11-year-old daughter Willow alerted her to the horrors of human trafficking and modern slavery, which caused her to launch a campaign to raise awareness and spur action.
Here are 5 Ways You Can Help Fight Human Trafficking and Support the Efforts of the Smith Family!
1. Educate Yourself and Tell others– Expose the truth about modern-day slavery. Make sure everyone knows the 27 million dirtiest secrets. Research on your own at websites such as:
www.faastinternational.org
www.iast.net (Initiative Against Trafficking)
www.freetheslaves.net
2. Invest in Change– Support those on the frontlines and enable them to make a difference. Help fund the most effective project to reduce slavery and care for its victims like:
www.ijm.org
www.gracehavenhouse.org
www.sharedhope.org
www.purplewings.org
3. Watch– Keep an eye out and don’t turn away. If you suspect slavery or exploitation, cal the national trafficking hotline: 888-3737-888.
4. Advocate for change – call or write your elected officials. Tell them that you care about the issue of human trafficking and want stronger laws to protect victims. Keep telling them. Get news from www.polarisproject.org on how to engage in political action and advocacy- P.O. Box 32489 Newark, NJ 07102. Tel- 973-624-5454; email- nj@polarisproject.org.
5. Organize– Organize your community to address the issue. For tips, see www.stopmodernslavery.org/docs/toolkit/pdf.
I would love it if we could get in touch with Jada Pinkett Smith or at least make her aware of Salvando Corazones (http://www.salvandocorazones.org). Salvando Corazones is a non-profit dedicated to the fight against trafficking of children into the sex industry in Costa Rica and through the operation of safe homes, child survivors of commercial sexual exploitation will receive education, rehabilitative services and the unconditional love and support needed to return to society as capable young adults.
Costa Rica is increasingly the favored travel destination of tourists’ looking for pleasures that are more licit. Namely, the sexual exploitation of children made too easily available through a potent combination of poverty, rampant incest, official neglect, exploding tourism and the increasingly sophisticated networks of organized crime. The majority of these tourists or men from the United States!
We would love to talk to Mrs. Smith and see if she can’t help spread the word.