Women’s Day is Every Day: The Fight for Basic Human Rights Continues

May International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month continue to remind us of the importance behind the fight for equality

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash — **Photo by** **Tim Mossholder** on **Unsplash**

International Women’s Day has come and gone for yet another year. March, the month during which we celebrate women’s history worldwide has also come to a close. One can hope that over this past month, we were all able to take some time to reflect on the amazing women in our lives.

However, although the official day and month for celebrating women has passed, it can be said that women should be celebrated every day of every month of every year, as we continue the fight for women’s rights.

Sadly, millions of women and girls around the globe face indescribable difficulties. Be it at the hands of relatives, spouses, or traffickers. They experience abuse which can be physical, mental, and emotional. Most often it is a combination of all three forms of abuse.

Fortunately, there are numerous organizations founded and run by caring, empathetic people worldwide. These people make it their life’s mission to help women and girls escape from the numerous and horrific injustices they face as trafficking and abuse victims. Thank you to all those women who raise awareness, conduct rescue missions, and provide opportunities and support for survivors.

In a world filled with cruelties and a higher prevalence of slavery than ever before, let us wrap up this month on a high note. Let’s celebrate the women whose lives’ work has been to protect and aid those who have found themselves victims of trafficking.

Although it would be a privilege to highlight all of these incredible women, for the sake of this short article, Free-Them has selected a few to shine the spotlight on this month.

World Without Exploitation: An Influential Campaign

World Without Exploitation (WWE), for example, is a “community of organizations and individuals who share a vision and seek to leverage [their] unique skills and different backgrounds in the fight to end human trafficking and sexual exploitation.” All but one of the founders and directors of this campaign are women.

“One of the most harmful misconceptions of those trafficked or exploited is viewing them as criminals rather than victims of crime.”

These women include survivors, directors, founders, attorneys, and activists. WWE is a movement seeking to address the root causes of exploitation. It truly is a community of women from different paths and experiences fighting for an exploitation-free world. WWE was founded by Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, Demand Abolition, National Organization for Women (NY), Sanctuary for Families, Survivors for Solutions and The Voices, and Faces Project.

WWE believes that every person is worthy of basic human rights and more. Trafficking endangers their welfare and the notion that trafficking is inevitable is “inconsistent with a human rights vision.” One of the most harmful misconceptions of those trafficked or exploited is viewing them as criminals rather than victims of crime.

WWE’s mission is to continuously bring awareness to communities that this is not the case and that trafficking victims are repeatedly exploited against their will. The story of each survivor is unique, tragic, and complex. Listening to their experiences is profoundly important in creating social policies that are effective and just.

Traffickinghub: Laila Mickelwait’s Campaign Against Pornhub

Laila Mickelwait, who often lends her time and knowledge to WWE through a speaker series, is the Director of Abolition for Exodus Cry and Founder of New Reality International. Laila has been working in the anti-trafficking field for more than a decade. Her goals include raising awareness globally and advocating for legislative reform at the United Nations. Her writing and speaking have been published in numerous outlets, including The New York Post, The Washington Examiner, BBC News, The Washington Post, The Christian Post, among others.

Image courtesy of  Hermes Rivera from Unsplash — *Image courtesy of* *Hermes Rivera* *from* *Unsplash*

Mickelwait is also the founder of Traffikinghub, which is a movement whose goal is to shut down the planet’s largest pornography site known as Pornhub. Through the site you can find the petition Mrs. Micklewait has initiated. By collecting signatures, she hopes to hold executives of Pornhub accountable for aiding trafficking as well as for promoting the sexual abuse of women and minors. So far, two million signatures have been collected.

If you are interested in signing the petition or learning more about the cause, visit Traffickinghub. To understand further how Pornhub participates in trafficking and sexual violence, you can view a previous article on this topic here.

Blake Lively supports Child Rescue Coalition & fights against child exploitation

Unfortunately, we do not often see or hear of celebrities lending their fame and time to this particular cause. It is a very difficult subject, but one that deserves urgent attention as it is sadly so widespread and unwaveringly drags victims through the most horrendous of traumas.

In the spring of 2017, actress Blake Lively gave a speech during Variety’s Power of Women in which she spoke out against child pornography, ie. child sexual abuse. It was a powerful 8-minutes in which Lively emphasized how unaware most people are of the impact and extent of this mass industry.

Lively spoke in support of Child Rescue Coalition (CRC) which works to find and expose IP addresses of producers and viewers of online child exploitation. A few of the key highlights of Lively’s address were:

There are 30-50 million pornographic files traded online each day.
Only 10% of children talk to someone about their experiences of abuse.
An abuser abuses anywhere between 50 to 100 children in their lifetime.
Lively raised a call to action encouraging more celebrities to get behind the cause.

Since the appeal, Lively along with her husband Ryan Reynolds have donated generously to various causes supporting the less fortunate. This includes a total of $500,000 to Covenant House Toronto and Covenant House Vancouver. These donations have helped to support the homeless, at-risk and/or trafficked youth in Canada.

It is truly comforting to see these generous and important contributions to such paramount and meaningful causes. As stated in a Global Citizen article discussing Lively’s contributions, “celebrities and influential personalities have the opportunity to help change the world for the better.” Even more of a prompt to household names to get involved in the fight against human trafficking.

Image courtesy of Fer Padilla from Unsplash — **Image courtesy of** **Fer Padilla** **from** **Unsplash**

A Warm and Special Thanks to Free-Them’s Founder and Team.

A very special and heartfelt thank you for all of her time, efforts, and contributions go out to the Founder and Executive Director of Free-Them, Shae Invidiata. As a part of the Free-Them council, we are all so fortunate to be a part of this important cause alongside Ms. Invidiata.

There are so many women whose lives she has impacted in the most positive ways. Thank you for having the vision and motivation as well as the initiative to found Free-Them and to bring people from all different backgrounds together to bring about change in our communities.

A special thank you also to all of the women at Free-Them for raising awareness and for your many years of dedication. Many thanks also to the men who work with us and support us in the fight to end human trafficking once and for all.

Stronger Together

Victimization occurs worldwide, in many different communities, across social classes and ages; there are no rules. Unfortunately, there is often the misconception that the individuals who become trapped by traffickers are somewhere far away, someone we never knew. This is a dangerous misconception as it brings our guard down and blinds us from the truth.

There is definitely a greater risk of being trafficked if the individual fits a high-risk profile. This could include youth, the homeless, people living at or under the poverty level, orphans, immigrants or migrants, individuals without identification (more difficult to find/track down), individuals in difficult and even dangerous family situations. Individuals fitting any of these profiles are at a greater likelihood of being lured into labour or sex trafficking.

This is due to a greater urgency for basic survival and greater desperation for work. Such desperation creates opportunities for traffickers as their victims become easier targets and so victimization and threats become less of a challenge.

However, individuals in more privileged situations are also at risk. They may be kidnapped and held against their will, tricked even by friends and spouses. Therefore, the effort that we make as a community by raising awareness and by working together to help survivors is crucial.

May the above examples of courage, willpower, and empathy be reminders that we always have the power to bring about change and hope. Women’s History Month may have come to an end in 2021, but our determination and loyalty to the cause will never cease.

A strong woman stands up for herself, a stronger woman stands up for everybody else.
- Unknown

If you are or believe you have identified someone in a trafficking situation, you can take action. Call 911 immediately to notify local law enforcement. You may also call the human trafficking hotlines in Canada and the United States by dialling the numbers below. Both hotlines are open 24/7/365 days of the year and provide services in over 200 languages.