Become an Abolitionist

How to End Slavery at Work

January is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. It’s a great time to take a stand against modern slavery by making a monthly contribution to Free the Slaves through your employer. U.S. GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES: This week is the deadline to join the...

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Can You Envision a World Free from Slavery?

This has been a challenging year, but we know that 2021 holds the promise of renewal. While the COVID-19 pandemic has made racial inequality and modern slavery worse, the recovery will provide an opportunity for a global reset. We do not need to repeat the inequities...

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Why We Have Hope

I have hope as we approach the year-end holidays, and I hope that you do, too. With the many challenges we face in promoting equality and universal freedom in the world today, what brings me hope is the optimism I hear from slavery survivors and their families around...

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Leave No One Behind on Human Rights Day

It’s Human Rights Day, when the world commemorates the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which includes the right to be free from slavery. Human rights are supposed to apply to everyone, everywhere, without regard to sex or race or age. But in Ghana, three...

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Give the Gift of Freedom and Equality

On this special Tuesday, people around the world will come together to celebrate generosity and make an impact. We hope you will share some love this holiday season with individuals and families going through tough times, including those trapped in modern forms of...

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Help Stop Racial Discrimination Against Haratines

Did you know that Mauritania was the last country in the world to ban slavery? Slavery dates back hundred of years in Mauritania, from a period when Arab Berbers raided and enslaved black Africans settled along the Senegal River, dominating and eventually submitting...

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Stand Against Anti-Haitian Racism

For more than 150 years Haiti and the Dominican Republic have shared the island of Hispaniola. Their relationship, however, has not been pleasant. Sadly, this antagonism has led to the creation of racially biased policies against Haitians in the Dominican territory.  ...

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Help Free Indians Trapped in the Caste System

Are you aware of the caste system in India? If you’re unfamiliar, it is a social structure that divides different groups into ranked categories. A person’s caste determines their social status, their livelihood, who they can marry and where they can live.  In the...

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Can You Help Stop Child Slavery?

Did you know that 1 in 4 victims of modern slavery are children?   At 7 years old, Kwezi left his childhood home with expectations of a better life and more opportunities. But that was far from his reality. Instead, he was tricked by traffickers and was forced to work...

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Promoting Racial Justice Can Stop Modern Slavery

Racial injustice is a legacy of slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment outlawed slavery in the U.S., and the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights helped prohibit slavery around the world. But these remarkable achievements did not end slavery. And...

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Child Labor is Child Abuse

June 12 is World Day Against Child Labor, a time to reflect on the fact that millions of children toil in harmful and hazardous jobs. Many are forced to work by their families or by traffickers. Many are beaten and whipped into submission.   That is what happened to...

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The Enslaved Need Your Help on #GivingTuesdayNow

Your generosity has changed lives around the world. The programs you support at Free the Slaves help people learn new skills and start microenterprises that build financial resiliency. Your contributions mean that slavery survivors are less likely to be re-enslaved,...

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This is Where Freedom Started

Visiting the front lines of modern slavery is a deeply emotional experience. As I write to you today from Northern India, my heart is filled with hope and joy. That’s because of the joy of freed bonded laborers I have met and the progress that has been made in their...

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20 Years of Fighting for Freedom

The year 2020 brings several important anniversaries. It’s the 20th anniversary of the United Nations Palermo Protocol, the landmark treaty to confront modern forms of slavery worldwide. It’s the 20th anniversary of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the...

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Will You Stand Up and Speak Out?

“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth.” Author William Faulkner’s thoughts about the value of standing up and speaking...

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Our Rights Make Us Human

Former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt once observed that “the future belongs to those who believe in their dreams.” At Free the Slaves, we dream of a future where everyone is free from slavery. Roosevelt believed in that dream too. Freedom from slavery is near the top...

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Acceptance Leads to Freedom

It’s a simple concept, and a universal value: acceptance. “He who is different from me does not impoverish me — he enriches me,” wrote the French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. But in the Dominican Republic, a lack of acceptance fuels modern slavery. Haitian...

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The Value of Resilience

It takes resilience to live in rural Nepal. Mountainous terrain and a lack of roads limit access to healthcare and education. Caste systems and violence against women and children create socioeconomic disparity. Dependence on agriculture and tourism limit the national...

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Valuing Courage in Times of Crisis

There are few places on earth where it’s harder to stand up for human rights than Haiti. On this year’s Human Rights Day, we’d like to share an update about our courageous front-line activists there, who continue to fight child slavery even in times of national...

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He Escaped to Reclaim Hope

Every child has the right to grow up in a safe environment that provides opportunities for a decent future. It’s a fundamental value, self-determination. Unfortunately, thousands of children in Ghana are denied this basic principle of fairness. Instead, they are...

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Five Ways #GivingTuesday Ends Slavery

Today is the most important day of the year for social justice. Millions of people will contribute to organizations that make the world a better place. I’d like to take a quick moment to explain what you can accomplish by donating to Free the Slaves on #GivingTuesday:...

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Thankful That We All Value Freedom

As the new executive director at Free the Slaves, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on the values that motivate me in the historic struggle to end slavery forever. They are values that drive all efforts to foster social justice. I am certain they are things that...

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Double Child Education to Fight Slavery

Summer is over and kids are back to school. But not enslaved children. For them, each day brings a lesson in hardship and mistreatment. They have no school mates, no pep rallies, no recess. Just backbreaking work and beatings. That’s why Free the Slaves invests so...

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From Fishing Nets to Safety Nets

Emmanuel endured years beneath the blistering sky of Ghana’s Lake Volta. As a child fishing slave, he faced the bare elements in a shoddy open boat. Sharp nets left deep cuts in his fingers. The blurry water left him fearful that he might not survive when forced to...

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She Goes Door-to-Door to Free Child Slaves

Jisika Jean Claude was only 10 when her father sent her away to live with another family. She thought she would go to school, but was forced instead to do chores, iron and wash clothes, and care for other children as a household servant. It was not the life she was...

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Double the Number of Slavery Resistant Villages

When people map how modern slavery plagues their villages in the Dominican Republic, it’s a real eye opener. The simple drawing becomes a road map for freedom. Everyone in bondage is identified, and residents pledge to liberate every last woman, man and child. It...

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Double the Number of Slaves Living Free

A single piece of paper can change someone’s life. That’s why Free the Slaves provides vital legal support for people we liberate from bondage. This summer, you can double the number of survivors who receive official documentation to put slavery behind them and resume...

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Double the Number of Rescues

It costs $180 to send our new rescue boat onto Lake Volta to liberate 15 children from fishing slavery in Ghana. If you donate $180 (just $15 a month), we can send the boat twice. A generous foundation will match your contributions dollar-for-dollar up to $100,000...

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Changing Lives in Senegal

No parent wants to force their child onto city streets to beg, but that’s what is happening in Senegal. Many village parents think their children are going to the city for religious boarding school. Instead, heartless traffickers force many kids into begging slavery....

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Feminist is Not a Dirty Word

Sustainable fashion activist Amy DuFault is worried these days. Worried that the word feminist – and all it stands for – is under assault. That’s why she’s designed a new way to stand-up for women’s rights, loud and proud. For International Women’s Day, Amy and TS...

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What You Can Do in One Minute to End Slavery

Today is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day in the United States, a key part of Trafficking Prevention Month. There are three simple things you can do right now to spread awareness that slavery still exists. It will only take one minute. Literally. Share the...

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10 Freedoms That Start With You

International development work can be tricky. Imagine building a school for 100 village children in Africa, but on opening day 20 desks are empty because those kids are enslaved at a mine. Disappointing, and tragic. That’s why we say that everything begins with...

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Savings Start With Freedom

Traffickers target people in financial trouble. When a medical crisis or other emergency strikes — like a fire, flood, drought, cyclone or earthquake — traffickers offer quick loans to desperate people who promise to “work it off.” When the borrower arrives at the job...

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Dignity Starts With Freedom

Traffickers steal more than a person’s labor and wages, they attack a victim’s basic humanity. They spit on the enslaved. They beat them. They’re assaulted sexually. The slaveholder’s goal: force people to give up hope.   Our message to those is slavery is simple:...

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Dreams Start With Freedom

People everywhere dream about a better future for their children. We all want them to have the education and opportunities necessary to lead fulfilling lives. For millions of families, those dreams aren’t possible. Traffickers promising schooling in return for easy...

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Equality Starts With Freedom

Inequality is one of the major root causes of modern slavery. Traffickers thrive when women’s rights aren’t respected, when gender-based violence is ignored, when girls are denied education, and when people of different races, tribes, nationalities or social status...

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Education Starts With Freedom

There are no classrooms at the mines, plantations, fish camps or sweatshops where children are enslaved. Their schooling stops the moment slavery starts. That’s why your support in liberating child slaves makes such a difference. Freedom changes the trajectory of a...

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A Happy Hanukkah for Child Slaves in Ghana

The first day of Hanukkah this year coincides with an important date in the anti-slavery calendar. December 2nd is the United Nations International Day for the Abolition of Slavery. That is why we are especially happy this year to spotlight a confluence of observance...

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Shelter Starts With Freedom

Someplace warm and dry to sleep. It’s a basic necessity. But traffickers don’t care. They force the enslaved into ramshackle conditions fit for animals, not people. Your support of Free the Slaves changes that.  I’ve seen firsthand how shelter begins with freedom. On...

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Safety Starts With Freedom

By donating to Free the Slaves, you liberate people from bondage and put traffickers in jail. Our front-line activists guide police to farms, factories and mines on raids that liberate the enslaved and arrest slaveholders. We help survivors file court cases and...

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Freedom Starts with Your Birthday

Is your birthday coming up? If so, stop for a minute and think about this: becoming one year wiser can now translate into a child slavery survivor in Ghana being able to afford a school uniform. While you are free to decide how you want to celebrate your birthday, or...

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