MTV EXIT Live in Manila, Philippines

From Business World:

To raise awareness and increase prevention of human trafficking, MTV Networks has joined forces with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) to hold a concert in Manila this Saturday night at the SM Mall of Asia concert grounds in Pasay City.

The free outdoor concert will be headlined by Korean pop sensation Jay Park, previously known as the leader of Korean boy band 2PM.

Actor and TV host Dingdong Dantes will also appear as MTV’s newest celebrity ambassador to help spread the word about the MTV EXIT campaign.

“As a member of the local entertainment industry, I may become helpful in this campaign by enlightening those Filipinos who are not yet aware of what is happening,” Mr. Dantes said in his speech during the concert’s press conference last week.

Mr. Dantes will also host a TV special called Enslaved: An MTV EXIT Special. The 30-minute documentary is the third in a 12-part series that MTV produced in Asia.

It will give audiences a glimpse into human trafficking and exploitation in the Philippines, telling the experiences of abuse and exploitation of four human trafficking survivors, and highlighting what everyone can do to help end this crime. Enslaved: An MTV EXIT Special will be aired on Nov. 27, 9:55 p.m. on GMA News TV. 

Read more

Are you going to this event?  If so get in touch to do a writeup!  Reach us at info@traffickingproject.org.

Beat Down Human Trafficking- Week #4

Here's another track from the album Beat Down Human Trafficking!

We will be releasing a new song off the album each Friday so be sure to check back next week for more.  And if you like what you hear share it with your friends and help us raise awareness.

Click to Download: J Nice- Human Trafficking Pt II

Beat Down Human Trafficking is a hip-hop album about modern day slavery. 

During a 10-month Fulbright grant in the Philippines in 2007 to study the NGO response to human trafficking, Justin Hakuta decided he wanted to do something other than write a research paper. Hakuta was spending his days interviewing survivors of forced prostitution, domestic slavery and forced labor and learning about the economic, cultural and political factors that allow trafficking to flourish. Wanting to find a personal, accessible way to insert trafficking into the mainstream consciousness, Hakuta started recording Beat Down in the Spring of 2007.

Happy Friday! 

The HTP Team
 

Launch: The mtvU Against Our Will Campaign

From mtvU:

The mtvU Against Our Will Campaign was launched in September 2011 in partnership with Free the Slaves, GEMS, and Polaris Project. The campaign amplifies America's college students' efforts to end modern-day slavery in the U.S., and empowers them to learn more and get involved. The name mtvU's Against Our Will Campaign, reflects the simple fact that this violation of our most basic human rights is against the will of the college students mobilizing around the issue, against our will as a free society, and against the will of those trapped in modern-day slavery.

Learn more about the Against Our Will Campaign

Human Trafficking on the Silver Screen: The Whistleblower

From Women's News Network:

In 1999, Kathryn Bolkovac, a single mother from Nebraska and a seasoned cop, joined the U.N. peacekeeping force in Bosnia, a country still in tumult after its brutal civil war. Her job was to investigate the sex trafficking of young women from Eastern Europe. Once she began collecting evidence from the victims she discovered that a number of U.N. officers – the very people who were supposed to be keeping the rule of law – were themselves playing part in prostitution rings.

Bolkovac told her employers, the American company DynCorp, what was going on. Instead of being lauded for her investigative acumen she lost her job. Her findings were considered bad public relations for the lucrative rebuilding effort.

After a two-year legal battle in England, where the DynCorp office that dealt with peacekeeping related contracts in Bosnia was based, a tribunal ruled that Boklovac was unfairly dismissed, thereby clearing her name.

Read the full article

Pepsi Refresh Project Demi Moore for GEMS

Demi Moore is joining the Pepsi Refresh Project with a grant idea to support GEMS (Girls Educational & Mentoring Services), an organization that empowers young women, ages 12-21, who have experienced commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking to exit the commercial sex industry and develop to their full potential. With $250,000, GEMS can train 10 former victims as outreach workers and employ them to go back in their community and help refresh the lives of thousands of victimized girls.

Support Demi's idea for GEMS by voting for her at www.facebook.com/refresheverything

More info on GEMS

MTV EXIT & The Killers: Human Trafficking Music Video

The MTV EXIT Campaign has been working with The Killers on a follow up to last year's multiple award-winning music video collaboration between MTV EXIT and Radiohead for their track All I Need from the In Rainbows album.

A new video has been produced for The Killers' track Goodnight, Travel Well from the band's third studio album, Day & Age. Directed by David Slade (30 Days of Night, Hard Candy) and produced by Anonymous Content in Los Angeles, the video is a hard hitting view of trafficking for sexual exploitation.

Visit MTV Exit here

Video by The Killers now available

From UTalkMartketing.com:

The Killers release video to highlight human trafficking issue

The Killers have partnered with UNICEF and USAID to produce a disturbing music video that dramatically highlights the dangers and impact of trafficking for sexual exploitation, particularly for young women.

The video, for the band’s track ‘Goodnight, Travel Well’ from the album ‘Day & Age’ has been created in collaboration, MTV EXIT (End Exploitation and Trafficking) and follows a similar collaboration between the broadcaster and Radiohead.

Importantly for marketers, the music video represents an innovative and creative way to fuse musical content with pro-social messaging.

The ‘Goodnight, Travel Well’ video has been released globally across all of MTV’s platforms in 168 countries. It has the potential to reach more than 500 million households worldwide.

It has also clocked up over 80,000 views on Unicef’s official YouTube channel.

"We are deeply shocked and appalled that women and children are forced into such exploitative situations. We hope that through MTV's efforts and this powerful video that millions of people across the world learn about this tragic form of modern-day slavery,” said The Killers.

The Killers are bringing critical human trafficking messages to a global audience, said Olivier Carduner, USAID’s Regional Mission Director for Asia.

“By using a variety of mediums – music videos, anime, film, and online content – as well as live concerts, we are reaching vast numbers of young people, those most at risk of being trafficked,” he added.

“This campaign capitalizes on The Killers’ and other bands’ and movie stars’ images and MTV’s brand appeal to transform people’s views about trafficking and provide a platform for NGOs, governments and law enforcement agencies to prevent trafficking and assist victims.”

The’Goodnight, Travel Well’ video was developed by Australian advertising agency CRC, with support also provided by UK music consultancy Huge Music.

It provides insight into the realities of trafficking, in particular the trafficking of children and adolescents into forced prostitution, and provides a link to information about how people can help to end exploitation and trafficking.

Catch it by watching it below.



I chose the UTalkMarketing article as opposed to the UNICEF release, MTV release or Killers webpage because this article highlights just how many sectors pay attention to social messaging through collaboration between private companies, international organizations and musical artists. 'Goodnight, Travel Well' is an excellent example of this type of collaboration, and the imagery is quite disturbing.

This article is already outdated, however. Youtube shows there has been over 99,000 hits now!

Music Video: Blood Into Gold - Peter Buffett featuring Akon

Press Release:

Blood Into Gold is the compelling new song from Peter Buffett featuring Akon, pinpointing the issue of human trafficking and slavery. The poignant video, produced by UNICEF, is a powerful visual representation of the songs message, utilizing moving images and video from around the world that depict the severity of this issue. As a complementary advocacy tool to the song, the hope of the video is to call attention to the issue and inspire others to help bring an end to the atrocities associated with human trafficking.

Visit istheresomethingicando.com for more info.

Buy the song in the iTunes store here

Call & Response Trailer # 3

Lost's Josh Holloway Makes Trafficking PSA

Poverty and the Risk of Labor Exploitation

Excerpts from an article from the Voice of America:

Poverty in Haiti Places Children at Risk for Labor Exploitation

U.N. officials are working with Haiti's government to prevent scores of children from falling prey to forced labor. VOA's Brian Wagner reports that chronic poverty places many children at risk of exploitation.

Low-income students in a health classMany Haitians take pride that their nation was the first in the Americas to abolish slavery during a revolt in 1791. Yet even today, scores of children labor as unpaid domestic servants in homes across the impoverished Caribbean nation.

The U.N. Childrens Fund estimates that more than 170,000 children, mostly girls, do not attend school and engage in forced labor in a practice known as restavek. Many come to the capital from rural areas, where parents say they have no resources to provide food and schooling for some of their children...

Sintyl Wilson (above) runs a school in the Martissant neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, where he says he is working to keep the numbers of restavek children down. He says, if not for free meals and low tuition at his school, some of his 125 students would likely be working as domestic servants.

Wilson says the neighborhood is full of restavek children. He says the students most at risk of being pressed into work are those with siblings who already are restaveks.

U.N. estimates show about half of Haitian children attend primary school, and about 20 percent continue on to secondary school.

This school in Martissant offers afternoon classes for restavek children who must work during the day.

Now, Wilson says he is trying to draw more restavek children into the school, by offering vocational training for students to become auto mechanics, electricians or develop other trades. Wilson shows off brand-new wrenches and other hand tools he has bought for students to begin apprenticing in a nearby auto repair shop...

The school's assistant director, Jean Baptiste Marie Marline, says children pressed into domestic service often face a difficult future.

Marline says children in abusive and demeaning situations often have low self-esteem and, even if they flee restavek homes they can be drawn into forced labor by others.

Haiti's government has laws on the books forbidding forced labor and child abuse. But experts say many children can fall through the cracks in a nation where scores of babies never receive a birth certificate.

Massimo Toschi, a child welfare expert with the U.N. Mission in Haiti, says a child without a birth certificate has very few legal protections. "So basically they do not exist, and it is very easy to have them forced into trafficking, exploitation, child labor, and no one would know about it," he said.

Earlier this year, the U.N. mission began targeting restavek with a media campaign featuring Haitian-born musician Wyclef Jean.

Toschi says the goal is to raise awareness about the plight of thousands of children and challenge cultural acceptance of restavek...

Ricky Martin: Llame y Vive

From Javno:

He may be known for Livin' La Vida Loca, but Latin pop idol Ricky Martin is using his star power for more, this time to campaign against human trafficking.

Martin has partnered with the Inter-American Development Bank and Ayuda to launch "Llama y Vive" or "Call and Live".

"My dream right now is all about seeing abolition, abolition of a new era, abolition of what we call a modern day form of slavery which is human trafficking and I'm not going to give up.", states Martin.

The campaign works to prevent human trafficking from Latin America and provide protection services to Latino victims in Washington, D.C. - including offering a confidential victims' hotline.

See the video here

Radiohead Again

The music video:

Child Labor, Meet Radiohead

Recently Radiohead teamed up with the MTV EXIT campaign, a multimedia initiative to end exploitation and human trafficking, to create a documentary style music video of their song, "All I Need" to call attention to harsh labor practices and the exploitation of children. See the video here.

For more than two decades Radiohead has exercised their voice as political, human rights, and environmental activists. The band is now calling listeners' attention to the need to end harsh labor practices and the exploitation of children. Check out this interview with Radiohead front man Thom Yorke, to learn more about why the issue of child labor is so important to address.

HBO's Cathouse

From the CATW:

On April 24, 2008, the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW), will hold a picket line protest from 12:30 pm to 2:30 pm in front of the corporate offices of HBO, located at 1100 6th Avenue at 42nd Street in New York City, protesting its reality series Cathouse set in a brothel.

“HBO for some time now has been normalizing the demand for prostitution, which fuels sex trafficking. Its most recent example, Cathouse, distorts the reality of the sex industry by transforming pimps into businessmen, and by presenting the buying and selling of women as harmless and normal,” says Norma Ramos, Co-Executive Director of CATW.

CATW’s campaign will address HBO's effort to erase the harm of prostitution. 80% of all human trafficking victims are women and girls, 70% of which end up in prostitution. “HBO cynically labels Cathouse as a documentary when in fact it packages prostitution as entertainment. HBO has a social responsibility to tell the truth about prostitution and sex trafficking, not profit from and promote the world's oldest oppression,” says Founding Board Member, Dorchen Leidholdt. “HBO is creating a culture of acceptance of sexual exploitation, and it needs to take responsibility for that,” says Norma Ramos. CATW calls upon HBO to fund social services for trafficking victims and produce a credible documentary that exposes the true nature and human cost of commercial sexual exploitation.

Author Victor Malarek and NYC Council Member John C. Liu will be joining CATW and making statements. Victor Malarek is the author of The Natasha’s and the upcoming book, The Johns. Co-sponsors of the protest will be ECPAT-USA, Prostitution Research and Education (PRE), Equality Now and NOW NYC. Joining the protest will be two ‘HBO’ blow-up doll pimps dressed in their Cathouse gear. A press conference will be held at the protest.

Download the press release

*************************



About the show

HBO delves into its Cathouse vault to mine the most memorable scenes and wildest moments, from six glorious years filming at one of Nevada's premier tourist attractions: the Moonlite BunnyRanch, the bustling legal brothel located outside of Reno. Featuring up-close-and-personal interviews with many of the girls, good-time proprietor Dennis Hof, and longtime Ranch manager Madam Suzette, this month's half-hour show brings Cathouse fans classic footage with the likes of Sunset Thomas, Isabella Soprano, Brooke Taylor, Bridget the Midget, Air Force Amy and many others.

Somaly Mam Benefit in New York

From Superior Pics Celebrity Forums

From the Somaly Mam Foundation:

The Somaly Mam Foundation held a fund raising event in New York last Tuesday that attracted super model Petra Nemcova and Bar Rafaeli, Leonardo DiCaprio's girlfriend.

At the event, The Somaly Mam Foundation held 2 sold out viewings of the movie Holly.

Major sponsors included Diane von Furstenberg, Glamour Magazine, LexisNexis, and Joseph Abboud.

Hosting the event and speakers for the evening included Petra Nemcova; Abigail Disney; Glamour Editor-in-Chief, Cindi Leive, and LexisNexis Global CEO, Andy Prozes. The evening began with a red carpet entrance where media such as Dateline, People Magazine, OK, US Weekly, and a local New York news channel interviewed the special guests.

Update

From One India:

Witnessing human trafficking first-hand during a recent visit to Cambodia left supermodel-turned-humanitarian Petra Nemcova totally shaken and horrified. Nemcova was so shocked by the experience that she teamed up with Southeast Asian-based charity the Somaly Mam Foundation in an effort to raise awareness for the devastating crimes.

"It makes me so angry. Girls and boys get sold as young as four-years-old and are put in animal cages. Some of them never see the light anymore," Contactmusic quoted her as saying. "We met this girl who was 13 and a pimp made her lose her right eye. The words 'pimp' and 'child' should never be in the same sentence," she added.

The Czech Republic-born model was very much moved by the foundation and its work, with its main purpose being to seek and rescue women and girls from the horrors of a life in brothels or on the streets. Nemcova displayed her support by wearing a dress hand-sewn by women rescued by the group, to a recent charity gala.

Ricky Martin in Cambodia

By Ker Munthit

From Yahoo News:

SIEM REAP, Cambodia - Ricky Martin met with victims of sexual exploitation Saturday during a visit to Cambodia to promote the fight against human trafficking.

Martin held infants and listened to a 14-year-old rape victim's song during his visit to a shelter in the northwestern city of Siem Reap, home of the famed Angkor temples. "She sings like an angel," Martin said after the girl finished a song she composed about the plight of trafficking victims.

The girl was among 65 victims sheltered at the rescue center of Afesip, a French non-governmental group working to combat human trafficking in Cambodia.

The pop star also held the 3-month-old daughter of a 22-year-old woman who was sold by her father to a brothel and is now HIV-positive. The woman broke down in tears as she urged Martin to keep fighting against human trafficking. "I'm not going to stop," Martin said, pounding his fist on his knee as he sat on a tiled floor. "All of you are my heroes. You are a gift of my life."

Martin said he plans to take what he learned in Cambodia and use it to "motivate people, organizations, governments in Latin America" in their efforts to combat the same problems. The Ricky Martin Foundation does most of its work in Latin America.

Read the full article

UN GIFT Conference- Ricky Martin Speech

iPods used to fight trafficking in Europe

From the Sunday Sun:

HUNDREDS of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being spent on a scheme to help a police force tackle human trafficking.

The devices, which can hold huge quantities of information, have been preloaded with recorded messages in a variety of different languages.

The idea is to provide victims of human trafficking with basic information in their language while officers wait for a qualified interpreter.

The messages have been recorded in Albanian, Portuguese, Czech, French, Lithuanian, Malay, Mandarin, Romanian, Russian and Thai.

Anti-Trafficking TV

Another installment of trafficking-related video clips from around the web

The Politics Behind Human Trafficking


Actor Ron Livingston on Child Sex Trafficking & his New Film HOLLY


Stay tuned for more...