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. 

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

You can sign the campaign here which has already produced 250 thousand signatures!

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. 

Human Trafficking In The News: 6-27-2012

Here is the latest installment of Human Trafficking in the news where we highlight stories of sex trafficking, forced labor, child exploitation and other human rights abuses. Thank you for keeping yourself educated on this subject, for actively pursuing justice for the victims of trafficking, and for never giving up as long as one person remains a slave. Click on the bold heading of each story for the entire articles.

Jada Pinkett Smith joins the human trafficking fight: The actress talks to CNN Freedom Project about her crusade to end human trafficking and how her 11-year-old daughter spurred her into action. Watch the interview here.


Another major chocolate maker pledges to be slave free: Up to 75% of the world’s cocoa beans are grown in small farms in West Africa. In the Ivory Coast alone, there are an estimated 200,000 children working the fields. Chocolate maker Ferrero has pledged to eradicate slavery from farms where it sources its cocoa by 2020.

Young boy carrying a heavy bag of cocoa pods. Many of these boys do not know what chocolate is, nor have they ever tasted it.

FBI rescues 79 kids from sex slavery in major nationwide raid: Of the 79 minors rescued, all but two were girls, and the youngest who was 13, had been a sex slave since she was 11.


The TIP Report released this week from the State Dept.: "The Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report is the U.S. Government’s principal diplomatic tool to engage foreign governments on human trafficking. In the TIP Report, the Department of State places each country onto one of three tiers based on the extent of their governments’ efforts to comply with the “minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking” found in Section 108 of the TVPA." Read the entire report here.

Shamir Ahmed, child rapist, who blames western  for allowing young girls to 'parade on the streets' where they could be preyed on by men like himself.

59 year old man and his sex-grooming gang convicted of 30 rapes: Shabir Ahmed, 59, was the leader of a child exploitation ring who raped vulnerable teenage girls - who he told to call him 'Daddy'. He would befriend his teenage victims and ply them with alcohol before carrying out his attacks and then hepassed them around for sex. Ahmed was one of nine Pakistani men jailed at Liverpool Crown Court for a total of 77 years last month for the horrific sex attacks. One victim said she couldn't remember how old she was the first time Ahmed raped her, but she knew she was so young she still had to stand on a chair to reach the sink.