Brace yourself: The Truth is grisly.
- COUNTLESS DEAD: The number of deaths caused by human trafficking is immeasurable - from unsafe working conditions, to the spread of disease, to physical abuse and neglect, tens of thousands of trafficking victims are killed each year. For example, in the Bangladesh factory collapse of May 2013 1,129 people were crushed to death because they were not allowed to leave even after the building had been condemned unsafe for inhabitation. At another factory, 112 people suffocated and were burned alive, after being forced to work in risky conditions in a building without fire escapes.
- 20.9 MILLION PEOPLE ARE ENSLAVED RIGHT NOW: According to the UN, there are currently nearly 21MIL trapped in labor-trafficking situations - a phenomenon President Obama has referred to as "modern day slavery." Modern-day slavery is when individuals are trapped in a number of inconceivably traumatic situations: being forced work up to 20 hours a day, up to 7 days a week, with as little as no pay at all, in unsafe working conditions. They often endure sexual, physical, and emotional abuse from traffickers who know there is nothing their victims can do to fight back. They may be kidnapped or unable to ever contact their families.
- 5.67 MILLION OF THESE SLAVES ARE CHILDREN: According to UNODC's 2012 Trafficking In Persons report, 27 percent of all detected slaves are children, and the percentage is rising. Children are often the most vulnerable to abuse, forced to work up to 20 hours a day to meet deadlines, making as little as a few cents a day - and often being forced to give their wages back to their employees. The International Labor Organization says there are approximately 215MIL child laborers currently in the international workforce - many of whom work full-time, with no opportunity for education, and no access to healthcare.
- BONDED LABOR IS REAL: Bonded labor is the most common form of labor-trafficking. The most common form of bonded labor is when a recruiter persuades a person in a vulnerable situation (usually someone who is impoverished, uneducated, underprivileged or abused) that a safe job is waiting for them across a border. When the person arrives to work, the job is usually much more difficult, dangerous, and unhealthy than they were led to believe - and the pay is much, much smaller. Unable to speak the language, lacking money to travel, and threatened by jail or deportation, they are forced to pay off a mythical debt the recruiter makes up for transportation costs to get the person to their new job. The interest on the debt grows larger than the wages they make - leaving the person trapped, often until death, with no way out.
- BRANDS WE BUY EVERY DAY USE MODERN-DAY SLAVERY: to make their items less expensive. What we often think of as a "bargain" is only so cheap because the people who made it were not paid for their work.
- BY SUPPORTING THE MANUFACTURERS THAT USE MODERN-DAY SLAVE LABOR, we neglect the companies working to pay their employees a fair wage. We enable the sweatshops to continue to be the only job options in impoverished villages, perpetuating the desperate situation which causes people to choose slavery over starvation - when we could be spending money on fashion that is creating well-paying jobs for the same families.