Bridges to Freedom

When my twelve year-old daughter, Alena, worked on a social studies project this fall, her research brought me face-to-face with some startling statistics about chocolate I couldn’t ignore. It seems that some of the world’s best chocolate has a very dark secret ‘ingredient’ not listed on its fancy wrappers: SLAVERY!

AJ’s investigation uncovered facts about kids as young as seven years old working illegally in cocoa plantations cutting down the cocoa and carrying heavy loads.Some are victims of trafficking and most of the kids are never paid. Although I love chocolate, even if I signed petitions and vowed to never buy it again (or only bought fair trade) it wouldn’t even put a dent in the cocoa trade—let alone make any difference to one of those kids.

Through further reading, I’ve been amazed to learn that there are more than 30 million slaves in the world today, more than at any other point in human history. And it’s not limited to the Ivory Coast or cocoa plantations.It can be in our own backyards.

Human Trafficking has become the fastest growing criminal industry on the globe.Nearly 200,000 people live enslaved at this moment in the United States, and an additional 17,500 new victims are trafficked into our borders each year.

It is no longer enough to think about change.

It is no longer enough to talk about change.

It is time to shift gears — marrying movement with intelligent action.

Not For Sale creates tools that engage business, government, and grassroots in order to incubate and grow social enterprises to benefit enslaved and vulnerable communities.

I hope you will join me in learning more about human trafficking and doing something about it. Together, we can build bridges to freedom.