Human Trafficking In The News 7-17-12: Hollywood Edition

A special Hollywood addition of human trafficking in the news highlighting actresses who are speaking out against sex trafficking and the dark scourge of modern slavery. The victims of human trafficking in all its many evil incarnations have had some very passionate and dedicated Hollywood advocates the past 5 years. Among them Julia Ormond, Ashley Judd, Demi Moore, Daryl Hannah and Lucy Liu. This week several more women have stepped forward to vocalize why they are demanding justice for these exploited women and care for those that have been rescued.

Below, The Walking Dead's Laurie Holden (pictured above) talks about the charity she works with, Somaly Mam Foundation, which fights to stop child trafficking all over the world.





Below, actress and activist Victoria Pannell and Andrea Powell of Fair Girls discuss the campaign targeting backpage.com, a site that child advocates charge is openly facilitating sex trafficking online. 

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Jada Pinkett Smith on Capitol Hill with her husband, actor Will Smith, and their daughter. She also brought along three trafficking survivors.

Wearing a T-shirt that declared “Free Slaves” actress Jada Pinkett Smith testified before Congress today to draw attention to human trafficking and forced labor, not only in the United States, but around the world.


“This old monster is still with us,” Pinkett Smith told the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. “This is an ugly, and too often invisible, problem.” 


She continued, “Fighting slavery doesn’t cost a lot of money,” she said. “The costs of allowing it to exist in our nation and abroad are much higher. It robs us of the thing we value most — our freedom. We know what that freedom is worth.”

And finally, last but not least, Mira Sorvino (above) stars in the movie Trade Of Innocents that comes out in September which co-stars Dermot Mulroney and is about the slave trade of children in Cambodia.