Mexico’s Congress Approves Anti-HT Bill

Just this past week Mexico’s Congress approved of a bill to combat human trafficking. The bill sounds promising enough as it doesn’t simply deal with prosecution, but it also includes protection and aftercare of victims. However, it’s also important to consider who the bill is aimed at, and who gets left out.

The bill includes prison sentences of up to 40 years for those convicted of sexual exploitation and abuse. While this sounds substantial only time will tell whether offenders being prosecuted will receive such lengthy sentences or not. For example, in the Netherlands the average sentence that offenders of human trafficking receive is around 4 years while the maximum penalty is 16 years.

The bill also is to create a fund to offer car to victims. It is crucial to include the 3 P’s: prevention, prosecution, and protection. Through law enforcement we hope that the first 2 P’s will be covered, and through this bill it is hoped that victims will begin to receive protection through aftercare services. Furthermore, a separate bill was approved to provide protection and rewards to victims of human trafficking who assist in the investigations and prosecutions against offenders. While the idea of offering protection is good, it should not be dependent on whether or not victims assist law enforcement. So, while both of these bills seem strong in offering protection to victims I am not convinced on how effective they will be. In order to be effective law enforcement cannot force victims to participate in investigations and prosecutions and there must be robustly detailed directions on how the fund to offer care to victims will be used.

A big thing the bill seems to be missing is that it does not cover labor trafficking. As I have discussed in my previous blog posts there amount of labor trafficking cases is much higher than sex trafficking. According to a report received by Congress last month regarding sex trafficking, the federal Attorney General’s Office estimated that at least 47 sex-trafficking rings operate in Mexico and 800,000 adults and 20,000 children fall victim each year. That is a very high number and that is only in relation to sex trafficking. The number, then, of labor trafficking victims is at least the same and most likely much higher. Labor trafficking victims cannot afford to be ignored by this bill.

Finally, while this bill is promising, as are many anti-human trafficking bills passed in countries, the effectiveness of enforcement and support to victims will be determined over time. Many countries pass such bills as this, but due to the complicated nature of human trafficking, as well as corruption, the bills lack teeth. In fact, Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) correlates most strongly with the amount of trafficking occurring in a country when compared to other indexes such as poverty level, education level, infant mortality level, and GDP. No country is immune to corruption and it is corruption that plays a huge part in the proliferation of human trafficking. We can only hope that overtime corruption will decrease and the human trafficking bills put forward by countries such as Mexico and Thailand will prove effective and unhindered in their purpose.

Check out the article HERE.

Week 15 | A mantra worth living your life by

Fourteen weeks have passed since the fellowship has started and I am still learning something new everyday. At Not For Sale, they have their own lexicon that they use on an everyday basis. They should really just put it all into a dictionary and publish it! One of their mantras is “Be better than you were yesterday. Be smarter than you were last week.” I can honestly say that I came into the fellowship knowing very little about nonprofits and human trafficking. Even though I had the passion to end slavery inside of me, I was overwhelmed with the abundance of information that I had to learn. I felt as if I had gone back to school! Ten days into the fellowship, I represented Not For Sale at an event with another fellow. Still very much a newbie, I was so nervous to go there on behalf of the organization. I felt inadequate to answer questions about human trafficking and Not For Sale. I had memorized the mission statement, but didn’t have a full grasp on the ins and outs of the organization quite yet. I wasn’t confident enough to speak about each of our platforms that we had just learned that week. What was the difference between Free2Play and Free2Challenge? What were we doing in South Africa, Amsterdam, Peru…? What was our relationship with 31bitsand AllSaints? I hated not being able to sum up the organization in one sentence. “We fight human trafficking” just didn’t cut it. I was frustrated that I didn’t have the Not For Sale elevator pitch down pat. I wanted to be eloquent. I wanted to articulate exactly what Not For Sale did and who they were- because I was proud to work on behalf of them. I believed in what they stood for… and I wanted to get people involved in the movement.

Fourteen weeks in and I’m still not an expert. But, I’m smarter than I was the first day of the fellowship. I finally memorized the three numbers- 657- in the “SB 657,” or the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act. I can now tell you about each of our platforms and our passion and methodology behind each of them. I can discern what Not For Sale would believe in and what they wouldn’t deem worthy of their time. I can speak with more confidence about the organization, though with some stutter- as I tend to stumble over my words when I get excited. When I left Virginia, I told my friends I was going to work for an anti-human trafficking organization. Now, I force them to listen to me talk about our Free2Work board on Pinterest, buy from ourAllSaints NFS collection, and read our impact report. I’m better than I was yesterday.

There are exactly two months left. I’m anxious to keep pushing myself to be better, smarter. I’m eager to work my hardest, not for myself… but for the bottom billion. There are sixty days left to make a difference. I know that the session five fellows will leave a successful mark in Not For Sale history. But, I also know that even after we all leave the fellowship and our house in Half Moon Bay that we were able to call home for six months… we will each continue to push ourselves in creating justice for the bottom billion. We will persist as abolitionists in our own unique way as the fellowship has molded us to be. We will use smart activism to advocate for the 30 million human beings enslaved in our world today. And even though we won’t be together in person, we will still stand in solidarity to act against injustice. We will be better than we were yesterday.

Putting my money where my mouth is

This past weekend some of the girls and I went into San Francisco for a fun day filled with shopping, eating, and nail salons. It was nice to get out of Half Moon Bay for a while and enjoy the beautiful weather. While we were walking down the street, I noticed a girl walking by us that was wearing an adorable green and white striped dress. I jokingly asked Katie if she would go and ask her where she bought it. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Katie ran over to the girl, complemented her dress, and asked her is she would tell her where she purchased it. Assuming that she had bought it at a small boutique or a high-end store out of my budget, I was excited when Katie returned to report that she had recently bought it at Forever21. While I was busy daydreaming about going to buy this dress, planning when I would be able to go find the nearest Forever21 store, Adrienne interrupted my thought process with, “Do you know that Forever21 received a poor grade for Free2Work?”

I spent the rest of the evening trying to find a way to justify shopping at Forever21 now that I know about their Free2Work Grade. What if I just bought the 1 dress and then never shopped there again? It’s so cheap! Surely 1 dress is not going to make a difference to their profit margins or their future productions of clothing….and on and on it went.

I have always had a passion for justice and tried to live my life in a way that reflects that. I stopped shopping at Wal-Mart years ago because of the way they treat their employees and their lack of social compliance regulations. But let’s be honest- anything I can get at Wal-Mart I can get at Target. My friends comments of ‘but everything is so much cheaper at Wal-Mart!” is always met with, ‘but why do you think that is?’ I am willing to pay a little bit more for products that I know were made by people who receive a living wage and who are treated with dignity and respect.

When I got home I realized that my way of thinking was exactly the problem with our society. Companies can get away with human trafficking and labor abuses because we all think that our purchase isn’t going to make a difference. But what if everyone held these companies responsible? Today I pledge to not shop at Forever21 until they fix the abuses in their supply chains, even if that means I won’t be wearing an adorable green and white striped dress anytime soon.

The John’s.

At Not For Sale, we are constantly talking about moving upstream and creating new futures for survivors or those vulnerable to human trafficking. I truly believe that Not For Sale is a pioneer in the nonprofit world and that their models are a replicable and sustainable way to help end human trafficking in our lifetime. Recognizing that human trafficking is an economic crises, Not For Sale works in those communities where families might not have another opportunity to make money for their family and helps give them a future that doesn’t include selling their children or working in sweat shops. Building up the communities where we know trafficking victims come from will help to prevent trafficking in those areas in the future. I truly believe this.

Still, there’s an elephant in the room. No business can survive without supply and demand, and yet sex trafficking is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world. How have we let this happen?

Children as young as five are being trafficked for sex – this is a fact. While it’s true that these children come from impoverished areas, that their families may have had a hand in selling them, and that there are people in the world making a living off of trading human beings, is all irrelevant to me when looking at the bigger picture. Someone is paying to have sex with this child. Why aren’t we talking about this? Why aren’t we more enraged? As long as there are men willing to buy sex, the sex trade will exist. We need organizations like Not For Sale to build up communities and create just employment where none exists – but traffickers are in this for the business; as long as there is demand they will find a supply.

Research has shown that most John’s [people who purchase sex] are generally well-respected men with regular jobs. They don’t know more than what appears on the surface: that these women are making ‘easy money’ or that they are choosing this profession. So, the John’s continue to pay for sex. Without knowing anything else, it’s an easy way to suppress a need and keep prostitution alive. Yet the mere fact that this continues to happen – and thrive – in our country, is a fact that keeps me up at night.

An easy answer is to blame the John’s, but it’s just not that cut and dry. The sad truth of the matter is that the John’s don’t know any better. For the patron, it’s impossible to know that the women behind the windows aren’t just “working”; some of them are. It’s hard to imagine that they are chained up after hours, that they are beaten when they don’t bring in enough money, or that their family’s lives are threatened if they try to get out of the business; but some of them are.

I believe that, as a society, we have failed. We can no longer turn a blind eye; this is happening in our own backyards, to our own children, by our own men. We need to take responsibility. We need to educate the John’s about the facts behind sex trafficking and prostitution. “For real change to occur, we have to turn the tables and point the finger of blame at the real perpetrators… Society has to radically rethink men’s responsibility in prostitution, and prostitution must be seen and defined as a male issue. To put the breaks on the flourishing demand for paid sex, we need to do away with patriarchal attitudes and half-baked excuses.” – Victor Malarek

Week 13: What is social impact?

Last week, our social ventures team at Not For Sale released our impact report for 2011.  After viewing the report, I felt inspired and thrilled about how it showcases Not For Sale’s exponential growth in the last year.  The metrics send a clear message:  our international projects are truly creating new futures for survivors of human trafficking and vulnerable communities throughout the globe.

In the wake of the report, I found myself wondering:  what is ‘impact’?  How do we define it, measure it, perceive it?  My mind began wandering back to a time in my life when my own definition of ‘impact’ changed forever: during my last three months as a university student.  I had spent the final semester of my Human Justice degree as a practicum student at a non-profit organization in rural Mexico, where I ended up learning far more than I bargained for…

When I first arrived in Mexico, I thought I was on the precipice of a momentous academic enterprise.  Hardwired to pursue academic success, I expected my three months as a practicum student to be one that would afford me the opportunity to build professionalism, engage in work of significant consequence, and achieve tangible, powerful results.

However, I was skeptical—and even slightly disappointed—when I found out that my supervisor had assigned me to work in a “learning centre” for children with special needs.  I always loved a challenge—which would certainly be the case here, given that I had no training in teaching, Spanish, or special needs.  Yet this wasn’t the sort of challenge I came to Mexico to pursue.  My intention was to make measurable contributions to justice that the academic community would embrace, respect, and value.

As I moved into my role as a teacher and caregiver, I wondered how working with these children would make me a better scholar.  I began stressing out about the thirty-page final paper I would have to write and present to my fellow practicum students and university faculty members back in Canada.  Basically, I had to return with my own impact report … but was I actually making any sort of impact?

I can’t pinpoint the exact moment that everything changed, but I do know the cause of my shift in thinking—her name was Julia, a beautiful six-year-old girl with Down’s syndrome.  She completely captured my heart.

While the rest of my peers back in Canada were writing policy, gaining practical experience in victim services, or being trained to become a professional in the criminal justice system, I was teaching Julia how to ride a bicycle.  Every afternoon, the two of us would venture out into the macadamia nut orchard to practice.  But as my time in Mexico began running out, I began worrying that she would not learn how to ride her bike by the time I left.  (In her defense, though, learning how to pedal a bike through sand in the desert of Baja California would be a formidable task for any beginner bicyclist…)

All her life, people had underestimated Julia.  Somehow, having Down’s syndrome equated to being ‘disabled’.  But on one of my last afternoons in Mexico, Julia suddenly took off on her bike all by herself, leaving me behind a cloud of dust.  And was she ever beaming.  With a face that radiated pure joy and pride, Julia proved her capability and independence to everyone.

As for myself—out of all the papers I had written, all the projects I had invested my time and energy into, nothing could compare to the overwhelming happiness I experienced that day.  Maybe it didn’t translate to another bullet point to add to my resumé … but seeing Julia shine that day was worth more than any satisfaction I could gain from an academic achievement.

I returned to Canada with a recalibrated perspective regarding social impact.  Unfortunately, though, I knew that teaching a child how to ride a bicycle didn’t quite meet my university’s criteria for my final paper, didn’t align with the sort of “academic impact” my peers had been engaged in during their practicum experience.  Quite frankly, there was no prestige in the work I did in Mexico.  But did that mean my work had no value, no impact?

Of course not.  As humans, it is in our nature to assign value to everything in the social, cultural, economic, and political sphere, but we don’t necessarily assign value in the best way.  For example, we pay higher salaries to plastic surgeons, professional athletes, and sales managers than to pastors, farmers, and those in the non-profit industry.  But is an anesthesiologist more important than an elementary school teacher, just because he/she earns a higher salary?  Is a parent whose child is attending an Ivey League school more successful than a parent whose child calls home every weekend from their community college to say “I love you”?  Is a country with a higher GDP better off than a country that treats its citizens with respect and dignity?

Non-profit organizations, too, tend to measure impact in terms of what is quantifiable, such as the number of donors or the size and popularity of their projects.  Of course, examining the return on investment, the metrics, the quantifiable data is necessary.  But it is only part of the story.  What about the college student struggling with student loans and cannot donate to Not For Sale, but instead chooses to promote ethical sourcing on his/her campus?  What about the pastor who encourages his/her congregation to seek social justice as a vocation?  What about the workplace that brews fair trade coffee at work, instead of purchasing coffee that was made by slaves?

Social impact is more than what is tangible, what creates immediate results.  It is more than what looks impressive on paper.  It may mean creating large-scale, long-term change for an entire community in Thailand or giving hope to a marginalized child in Mexico.  Regardless, every effort made in the name of justice has worth.

Adrienne | Week 13: Moving past insecurities

“For me, every day is a new thing.  I approach each project with a new insecurity, almost like the first project I ever did.  And I get the sweats.  I go in and start working, I’m not sure where I’m going. If I knew where I was going I wouldn’t do it.” – Frank Gehry

It has been almost two and a half years since I read David Batstone’s book Not For Sale.  I was visiting San Francisco for the first time and little did I know I would be back in two years to become a fellow in the Not For Sale Fellowship program.  From the first few pages to the very end, the book cultivated a sense of passion towards the anti-trafficking movement within me.  I couldn’t help but think that this is where my heart belonged, which was followed by the daunting torment in my mind that I had chosen the wrong major in school.

As I learned more about the organization, I was able to let out a giant sigh of relief.  A core belief at Not For Sale is that everyone has a role to play in the movement to end modern-day slavery.  I wanted to dig deeper and find out what my role in this movement would be.  I wanted to make my passion a vocation, and Not For Sale had the tools I could use to get there.  I wanted to be part of this opportunity so much, but anxiety set in and I began to question myself:

 What if my lack of formal education in this area holds me back?

What if I’m much older than everyone else?

What if my finances don’t last?

Everyone around me is “settling down” – should I be doing the same?

…followed by several more what ifs and yeah buts…

Listening to my insecurities was holding me back.  I was making excuses for myself that had the best of intentions but were really making me a coward.  What others envisioned for themselves is not what I wanted; I wanted to love what I do, and do something I believe in.  I downloaded the application for the Not For Sale Fellowship, took the time to convey what I had to offer and what I wanted to get out of the Fellowship, then sent it in, hands sweaty, hair messy, and full of apprehension.

I’m now halfway through this fellowship and I know that I have learned new skills and been part of new experiences that I could not have learned or received from any formal education or job experience out there.  Coming into work everyday is like walking into the maternity ward where mind babies are born, and as a fellow, I get to take that baby and help push it through puberty.  It’s incredibly fascinating, fast-paced and inspiring.  These past few months have been invaluable to my growth in not only my career in social justice, but as an individual as well.  It’s helped me build my confidence, allowed me to become an expert in the field, and has allowed me to be part of a movement that is making real change in this world.  I would not be where I am today if I had listened to my fears.

Is ignorance really bliss?

Growing up in a Korean-American home, I was raised with the dream of becoming a “professional” of some sorts. The Korean community tends to push their offspring to graduate as valedictorians of their high school, go to an Ivy-League university, and of course move unto medical, dental or law school. The TV show Glee’s description of the “Asian F” held true that anything below an A+ is equivalent to an F in the eyes of Asian parents.

My parents transitioned out of the typical Korean outlook on futures for my brother and I. When I told my parents about Not For Sale and modern-day slavery, they were exceptionally supportive. The world of nonprofits, however, was completely unknown territory to my whole family, including myself. When I first got accepted into the fellowship, my parents had millions of questions. “You’re paying to work as an unpaid intern?” “You’re moving across the country to California? “How exactly are you going to be helping these modern-day slaves?” Non-profit organizations were such a mystery to them that my mom didn’t even bother to explain to my grandfathers what it was that I actually did. Other family members asked me where I worked and after my initial response, they had no further questions but, “So, what’re you doing after?” They thought of my fellowship at NFS as merely an experience that would come to an end. And this killed me. I felt like I was holding back this wealth of information and passion about NFS that I just wanted to spew at them. But, they had no desire to learn. Did they know about the one million South Korean women enslaved in brothels? I wonder. And if they did, why did they remain ignorant? Are people more comfortable not knowing about the 30 million slaves in the world? I suppose ignorance is bliss to some.

Last week, I finally had time to fully explain each of Not For Sale’s platforms to my parents and brother. I was so happy to share about each of the international projects, Free2Rock, the Montara Circle, Free2Work, Free2Play, and so on. I was stumbling over my words, because I was so excited… and there was just so much to say.

I asked my Mom what she told people about Not For Sale. She gave me a well-rehearsed speech that was so epic that I wish I had recorded it. (I could tell that she had basically memorized the NFS website and our videos.) “There are over 30 million slaves in the world… Dave went to an Indian restaurant and discovered that slavery is still alive, even in America… My daughter is an abolitionist… NFS creates futures for survivors of human trafficking. Oh, and charity is dead.”

I’m so appreciative for parents who aren’t ignorant and so supportive of the movement. And, of course, I’m also thankful for Not For Sale—this opportunity has been so much more than a six month experience at an international nonprofit. It has literally opened my eyes to a whole new world. It’s ironic that NFS creates futures for survivors of modern-day slavery, because whether they know it or not—they’ve created a new future for me as well.