Speak free

What we're talking about right now.

Friday October 7, 2022

Eight myths keeping cocoa farmers in poverty

Recent years have seen important developments on the topic of living income for cocoa farmers, and yet, poverty is still a daily reality for virtually all cocoa farmer families in West Africa. If we want to tackle child labor, deforestation and other social and environmental harms associated with the production of cocoa, we must first ensure cocoa farmers are earning a living income. Because as Antonie C. Fountain writes: When farmers must choose between feeding their family, and not cutting down old growth trees, it is not a choice. When they must choose between feeding their family

Anti-slavery activists

Friday September 30, 2022

Designer Louise Xin’s mission to fight forced labor with fashion

Krysta Bisnauth

Photo credit: Emma Grann Louise Xin makes stunning, one-of-a-kind dresses that almost float down runways with an ethereal quality. Xin is a Chinese-Swedish couture designer who used the pandemic to realize her dream of becoming a designer. Like her clothes, her methods are quite unique. Xin is self-taught and her line is rental-only. She upcycles as much material as she can because she can’t 100% know" where her fiber comes from and "if someone says they do, mostly they're lying..." She also made her fashion debut last year with a digital runway presentation – protesting Uyghur forced

Environment

Tuesday September 6, 2022

EU: Tip the scales to put people and the planet before profits

Image credit: Philip Reynaers / Photonews / Justice is Everybody’s Business Time is up for companies profiting from modern slavery and environmental destruction in their global value chains. The E.U. is preparing a new due diligence law, and together with 100 other civil society and trade union organizations, the Freedom United community is mobilizing to ensure the legislation can effectively hold companies accountable. Activists have taken to the streets of Brussels to make our demands clear. On September 6, the Justice is Everybody’s Business campaign launched with a bang.

Safer Streets For All white text on street background

Law & Policy

Tuesday August 23, 2022

A non-carceral approach to trafficking: Unpacking California’s Safer Streets for All Act

By Jamison Liang, Freedom United and Leigh LaChapelle, Cast The Safer Streets for All Act was signed into law on July 1, 2022 and will come into effect in January 2023. Freedom United and our partner Cast were proud to back the Safer Streets for All Act (SB 357), an essential bill just signed into law in California that will stop survivors of trafficking and sex workers from facing a criminal record simply for walking on the street. It does so by repealing Section 653.22 of California’s penal code — a harmful, archaic law that criminalizes loitering for the intent to engage in

U.S. begins blocking solar materials produced in Uyghur Region

Environment

Thursday August 18, 2022

Anti-slavery and a human rights-centered just transition

The climate crisis is here, and people are feeling the consequences now: water shortages across Europe; wildfires in Spain, Portugal, England, and California; devastating floods in South Korea; and the Horn of Africa continues to face the worst drought in over 40 years. This crisis and climate-induced events over the last decade have prompted emergency measures, bills, and increasing talk of a “just transition” – the social changes needed to move to a low-carbon economy. In October we highlighted how climate inaction is undermining anti-slavery efforts. The consequence of inaction is