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Today We Face a Different Battle

Luke Blocher Remarks at Ohio Human Trafficking Awareness Day January 9th, 2014 in Columbus, OH at the Ohio Statehouse The Freedom Center is a museum on the banks of the Ohio River in Cincinnati. We are located there, on the border between slave and

Islam and the Fight Against Human Trafficking

If you are reading this in the United States, you are probably wary, if not critical, of the religion of Islam. Since 2001, the media has paraded horrific images of Isis fighters, Al-qaeda tapes, or Hezbollah revolutionaries across our TV screens. Bu

Slavery Still Exists

Recently, Jon Stewart from The Daily Show challenged Bill O'Reilly to acknowledge white privilege, and the legacy of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. It was a challenging clip to watch, and informative about the state of affairs in our society. I agre

11 Facts About Modern Day Slavery

  It’s not just sex Forced Labor is much more rampant than sex trafficking. In fact, 65% of the world’s slaves are in a forced labor situation. [1] Watch what you eat 90% of companies shipping shrimp to the U.S. use some type of bonded or forced lab

Why I Became Involved in the Human Trafficking Fight: The Business Role in Human Trafficking

When I first reached the decision to support the creation of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center almost 20 years ago, I believed that the story of the Underground Railroad and the abolition of slavery needed to be recalled in their own r

Fair Trade in One Local Community

As the owner of a growing Fair Trade shop in Northern Kentucky, I have plenty of opportunities to talk with people about what Fair Trade is, as well as what it isn't. While I definitely find that the general public's awareness of sweatshops, unfair w

Human Trafficking Behind Bars and Beyond.

Their stories go beyond heart break, but they are true: At age 11, she ran away from home because of an alcoholic mother and a sexually abusive step-father. After three days on the street, a much older man befriended her, took her home, clothed and f

Remembering and Interpreting Northern Slavery

The perception that American slavery existed exclusively in the South persists even after decades of scholarship detailing slavery in the North. Several factors contribute to the perpetuation of the slavery as Southern myth. To be sure, the overwhelm

Am I Still Not a Man and a Brother?

As noted in a recent gallery marking the 175th anniversary of Anti-Slavery International, photographs and images have long been central to antislavery campaigns. In this guest post drawn from a longer article, historian Zoe Trodd asks what contempor

Child Exploitation: How Old or How High?

When he asked me in broken English with his heavy Vietnamese accent how old of a girl I was interested in, I felt nothing inside me. Watching him hold his hand at his waist and then moving it up to his chest, indicating the size of a girl I supposedl