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Friday July 28, 2023

Freedom United welcomes Human Trafficking Search to our community

Joanna Ewart-James

Freedom United is excited to announce that Human Trafficking Search is now part of the Freedom United family. The two organizations share a goal of bringing you timely and informed analysis of all forms of human trafficking issues worldwide. Who is Human Trafficking Search? It is a global resource and database, based in the U.S., like Freedom United. On its website, you can read news articles, watch videos, view art, explore research, and blog posts covering all forms of human trafficking. These include resource hubs on prison labor, foster care and trafficking, and the war in

Kenyan women continue protest against kafala system in Lebanon

Anti-slavery activists

Friday June 16, 2023

Kenyan domestic worker stranded in Lebanon over inability to buy her flight ticket

This piece is an account written by Wanja Kimani who helped support Catherine Ranji, a migrant domestic worker in Lebanon. June 19, 2023 update: Good news! Catherine will finally reach her home country this week. Catherine Wanjiru Ranji is a 25-year-old Kenyan who hails from Karibaribi in Gatundu North, Kiambu County. She is currently stranded in Beirut, Lebanon. She first reached out to me in August 2022 while looking for assistance to return home. She had worked in Lebanon as a domestic worker for some time until she fell out with her madam over unpaid wages. The office,

Law & Policy

Friday June 9, 2023

Progress in the E.U. for laws that put people and planet before profit

Joanna Ewart-James

By Joanna Ewart-James. The European Parliament approved a ground-breaking draft law on June 1, that would call on large companies to be responsible for ensuring their goods are produced without harming the environment or causing harm to people, including forced labor – 63% of which is estimated to be in the private economy. Huw Jones at Reuters reports that the rules would require: “large companies selling products in the EU - even those headquartered outside the bloc - would have to check on their suppliers and take mitigating action if abuses or environmental damage are

Anti-slavery activists

Tuesday May 16, 2023

David Yambio: “EU policy is killing us”

Video credit: Refugees in Libya “We have been killed, we have been raped, we have been tortured, we have been extorted, and we have been put to forced labor,” says David Yambio, Libya survivor and advocate. David Yambio co-founded the survivor-led movement Refugees in Libya which amplifies the voices, experiences, and demands of people who have been subjected to grave mistreatment in Libya. He calls the E.U. and the Libyan governments out for their role in creating a mass detention system in which refugees are systematically abused and exploited. And he demands urgent

Supply Chain

Monday May 15, 2023

I visited cocoa farmers in West Africa. Here’s what they told me.

Joanna Ewart-James

The global chocolate industry has made major profits thanks to the work carried out in the cocoa-producing countries of West Africa, and yet, cocoa farming communities continue to live in poverty. Poor conditions give rise to several other concerning issues, including forced and child labor, and deforestation. We hear a lot about what changes are needed to make the chocolate industry fairer from civil society, sustainability experts, government representatives, and companies themselves. But the most important voices in this discussion are often the hardest to hear: the voices of farming