speakers
In addition to a special Saturday afternoon session with numerous denominational representatives from social justice offices in Washington DC who are working on the issue of trafficking and modern day slavery (including the United Methodist Church, Church of the Brethren, and others), we are please to announce confirmation of speakers from the Polaris Project and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers covering themes including women being sold into slavery through the international sex trade and migrant workers in the tomato industry in the US. Please see below for more information.
Polaris Project:
Polaris Project's vision is for a world without slavery. Named after the North Star that guided slaves towards freedom along the Underground Railroad, Polaris Project has been providing a comprehensive and community-based approach to combating human trafficking and modern-day slavery since 2002.
Polaris Project is one of the few organizations working to serve both U.S. citizen and foreign national victims of human trafficking. Our programs operate at international, national and local levels through our offices in Washington, DC; Newark, NJ; Denver, CO; Los Angeles, CA; and Tokyo, Japan.
Polaris Project's comprehensive approach to combating human trafficking includes operating local and national crisis hotlines, conducting direct outreach and victim identification, providing social services and housing to victims, advocating for stronger state and national anti-trafficking legislation, and engaging community members in local and national grassroots efforts. Through these efforts Polaris Project seeks to aid victims and increase awareness at both the grassroots and policy level.
B. Myles, the Deputy Director at Polaris Project, was recently featured on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360° on March 13th. Myles discussed the reality of sex trafficking in the context of a piece highlighting the lack of public awareness about the experiences of women and girls in prostitution. Polaris Project was also recently featured in Nicholas Kristof's op-ed article in The NY Times entitled "The Pimps' Slaves." For more information on Polaris Project, please visit the website at www.polarisproject.org
Coalition of Immokalee Workers
CIW began organizing in 1993 as a small group of workers who met weekly in a room borrowed from a local church to discuss how to better our community and our lives. In a relatively short time CIW has managed to bring about significant, concrete change. Combining community-wide work stoppages with intense public pressure, CIW's early organizing ended over twenty years of declining wages in the tomato industry. In 2001, CIW launched the first-ever farmworker boycott of a major fast-food company -- the national boycott of Taco Bell -- calling on the fast-food giant to take responsibility for human rights abuses in the fields where its produce is grown and picked. In March 2005, amidst growing pressure from students, churches, and communities throughout the country, Taco Bell agreed to meet all of CIW's demands to improve wages and working conditions for Florida tomato pickers in its supply chain. And in April of 2007 -- following a two-year battle with the largest restaurant chain in the world, McDonald's -- CIW and the Campaign for Fair Food reached a landmark accord that not only met the standards set in the Taco Bell agreement, but also committed the fast-food leader to collaborate with the CIW in developing an industry-wide third party mechanism for monitoring conditions in the fields and investigating abuses.
The CIW is also a co-founder of the national Freedom Network USA to Empower Enslaved and Trafficked Persons, and Southeastern US Regional Coordinator for the Freedom Network Training Institute, conducting trainings for law enforcement and social service personnel in how to identify and assist slavery victims, as well as advocating for the full prosecution of all traffickers, including corporations and their sub-contractors. Over the past several years, through the Campaign for Fair Food and our anti-slavery work, Immokalee has evolved from being one of the poorest, most politically powerless communities in the country to become today a new and important public presence with forceful, committed leadership directly from the base of our community -- young, immigrant workers forging a future of livable wages and modern labor relations in Florida's fields. In recognition of their work, three CIW members were recently presented the prestigious 2003 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, the first time the award has gone to a US-based organization in its 20 years of existence. For more information on the Coaltion for Immokalee Workers, please visit the website at www.ciw-online.org