A girl disappeared one morning on her way to school. Police recovered her two years later, bloody, hurting, and spoiled. This girl was a victim of the slave trade, one of the largest illegal trades in the world. Slaves work in fields, factories, and stores. Teenage anti-slavery activist Alice Nyquist says, “They clean houses. They farm. They work in restaurants. They work in nail salons. They nanny. They’re like us, except that they’re unpaid, abused, intimidated, and trapped.” Slaves may have packaged the chocolate bar you ate last Saturday; they may have picked the apples in your fruit salad. Your waiter last night may have been a slave. Slave traders capture ordinary people, snatching away their lives and replacing them with torture.
“I first heard about human trafficking at the Do Hard Things conference in Colorado in 2007,” Alice says. “After the conference, I went to my library and took out Zac Hunter’s book Be the Change, which had been recommended at the conference. The chapter on slavery changed my life.” Unable to rest until she did something to help, Alice began researching, thinking and praying about what she could do to be the change. “I wanted to provide girls with a safe, loving place to go after they’d gone through so much,” Alice says, “and I knew that was expensive.” She began thinking about wristbands, since she knew they were popular, especially among teenagers, and they would raise not just money, but awareness. After finding the supplies at a local craft store, Alice made some wristbands out of hemp and silver beads that spelled the word FREED. In March 2010, her web site bandstobreakbonds.org opened, and the public was able to buy FREED wristbands through her organization Bands to Break Bonds.
“I was nervous!” Alice says of opening Bands to Break Bonds. “I didn’t know if it would work.” But now Alice has not only sold many hemp wristbands with different words on them, but now green silicone wristbands are available on her web site. The proceeds from the bands go to organizations that fight human trafficking. “We donate to a different organization every few months,” Alice says. “We started out donating to Rapha House; after that, we donated to the HOME foundation, and now to Children’s HopeChest.” Bands to Break Bonds runs purely on volunteer power and Alice takes no money for herself. “Right now, the number [of volunteers] fluctuates from fifteen to thirty, depending on who you count. … As far as steady volunteers go, I have eight people who are really dedicated, and they’re my life support.” Besides donating a few dollars to a worthy cause and getting a cool bracelet in return, you can help Alice by selling wristbands to your friends and acquaintances or by making videos for YouTube to educate about slavery. For more information about Bands to Break Bonds or ways you can help, you can email Alice at contact@bandstobreakbonds.org.
If you want to help fight slavery in other ways, there are lots of things you can do. “We need to be aware of the people around us, train our friends to be aware of the people around them, and be able to report potential instances of human trafficking so that victims can be rescued,” Alice says. Resources for educating yourself and others, spreading awareness, or fighting slavery are at the bottom of the article. One huge thing we can do is to stop supporting companies built on the backs of slaves. Many of the products we find in stores were produced or packaged by slaves. To find out which companies are careful not to contract out to slave labor, go to freetowork.org. Slavery didn’t end with Abraham Lincoln and William Wilberforce; it thrives today, but we can do something to stop it. Raise awareness, support organizations and people committed to ending slavery, and stop supporting the trade. As Zac Hunter says, BE THE CHANGE.
Resources:
Be the Change by Zac Hunter
Human Trafficking Hotline: 1-88-3737-888
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/trafficking/about/fact_human.pdf (What is the legal definition of human trafficking?)
www.acf.hhs.gov/trafficking/about/brochures.html (How do I recognize victims?)
http://www.BandstoBreakBonds.org/about-slavery.html (About slavery)
http://www.freetowork.org (How can I avoid products produced by slaves?)
http://www.polarisproject.org (About slavery)
http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/index.htm (About slavery)
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