USC Agrees to 1.1 Billion Settlement for 710 Sexual Assault Survivors
Sign and share petitions to keep clothing and chocolate brands accountable
Good evening Activists,
We hope you had a great start to the spring season. Thank you for sticking close to this cause throughout National Women’s History month and for bringing awareness to an issue impacting millions of young girls, women, and their communities around the world. We want to emphasize the significant yet accessible ways in which you can contribute to the movement with conscious consumption, petitions, and communicating with government leaders to pass humanitarian legislation. We appreciate your collective efforts to end labor and sex trafficking and as always, your feedback is appreciated!
Let’s take action together
Sign the Petition to hold brands accountable and build a fair future for garment workers in 7 Actions: Pay up, keep workers safe, go transparent, give workers center stage, sign enforceable contract, end starvation wages, and help pass laws.
👉 Take a minute to sign the petition here.
With Easter coming up, we want to bring attention to the widespread use of forced labor in cocoa supply chains of comprises like Hershey’s and Nestle. Slaveryfreechocolate.org provides consumers with list of chocolate companies that only use ethically grown cocoa. Find out how you can tell if the chocolate you are eating is connected to child slavery here.
👉 Please share and sign a petition to Stop Hershey's From Using Child Slaves to Harvest Cocoa here.
Click here to learn more about our “why”.
As always, thanks for being part of our growing community of activists and as a reminder, we love hearing from you! All feedback is welcome!
This Week..
ACTIVISTS OF THE WEEK:
Christopher Miller
Photo credit to: National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
Christopher Miller is the Director of Education at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati. The center is dedicated to the stories of the Underground Railroad with the goal of illuminating the true meaning of inclusive freedom by presenting permanent and special exhibits that inspire, public programming that provoke dialogue and action, and educational resources that equip modern abolitionists. Christopher coordinates initiatives that build public awareness of history and advances initiatives related to social justice, equity and inclusion, and cultural competency. He advocates for educating the public about the complete narrative of America through the lens of the African American experience.
👉 Read more about Christopher here.
👉 Read more the center, here.
FOR YOUR EYES:
USC Agrees to $1.1 Billion in Settlement With Hundreds of Women Alleging Abuse by Gynecologist
Garment Workers Win Historic Victory in Effort to Transform the Fashion Industry
Breaking the Silence: How to Talk to Your Kids About Sexual Assault, Consent
Slavery Survivors Demand Lead Role in Fight Against Trafficking
FOR YOUR EARS:
👉 If you enjoy staying informed about the stories, initiatives, and people within the counter human trafficking movement, share to tell others about it:
FOR YOUR EYES
Photo credit to: NBC News
USC Agrees to $1.1 Billion in Settlement With Hundreds of Women Alleging Abuse by Gynecologist: The University of Southern California has agreed to pay more than $1 billion in settlements to the 710 women who accused former student health center gynecologist George Tyndall of repeated sexual assaults on patients.
Photo credit to: Waging Nonviolence
Garment Workers Win Historic Victory in Effort to Transform the Fashion Industry: Last year, apparel factory workers in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Cambodia, were told by retailers that in order to offset the financial losses of the pandemic, executives were going to steal $40 billion worth of wages. By March 2021, PayUp had secured $22 billion from brands who had initially refused to pay, and exposed the level of labor exploitation present in the global supply chain.
👉Learn more about PayUp’s activism here.
Photo credit to: NBC News
Breaking the Silence: How to Talk to Your Kids About Sexual Assault, Consent: According to the CDC, one in four girls and one in 13 boys is sexually abused during their childhood. Half of transgender people are sexually abused in their lifetime. Less than one in five child sex abuse cases move forward to prosecution, and only half of those cases result in a conviction or guilty plea. In light of these statistics, experts want to emphasize the importance of parents talking to their children about consent.
Photo credit to: OSCE
Slavery Survivors Demand Lead Role in Fight Against Trafficking: While survivors of modern slavery are often relied upon to share their stories and support other victims, few are given the chance to influence or spearhead anti-trafficking initiatives. The 21-member International Survivors of Trafficking Advisory Council (ISTAC) urged government leaders to enable victims of human trafficking to play a key role in programs and policies to tackle the crime effectively.
FOR YOUR EARS:
Photo credit to: Apple podcasts
Ending Human Trafficking 246 – Why You Should Read The Car Thief: (50 minutes, podcast) Dr. Sandie Morgan and author Vicki Reed breakdown the fiction book The Car Thief: A Boy’s Perilous Journey Through the Juvenile Justice System. They discuss the plot of this story and how it reflects real-life situations; as well as, how this story is a great educational resource.
Photo credit to: Apple Podcasts
The Guardian: Talking about sexual violence with men: (podcast, 26 minutes) How we can better engage men to prevent gender-based violence? Jessica Valenti talks with Jamil Smith of MTV News and Dr Dorothy Edwards of Green Dot to discuss this issue.
COMING UP:
Briefing: Uncovering the Evidence of Abuse on Pornhub
An
online webinar
open to the public Hosted by NCOSE and CATW
When: Thursday, April 8, 2021 at 2pm ET
Presenters will provide a concise overview of all evidence related to the criminal behavior of MindGeek, owner of Pornhub.
The evidence of MindGeek's complicity in mass sexual crime is overwhelming and continues to grow. It is time for both criminal prosecution and regulatory preventative action. For over a decade, MindGeek has been confronted by numerous survivors who have come forward about their sex trafficking or child sexual abuse being filmed and then uploaded, monetized, promoted, made downloadable, and shared countless times on Pornhub and other MindGeek-owned websites. Pornhub has profited from the mass distribution of filmed sexual crime as well as non-consensually recorded and non-consensually uploaded videos.
This briefing will help provide the information necessary to begin pursuing justice for victims.
👉To register for this webinar, click here!
We hope you’ve enjoyed this issue of Liberty Line, a weekly newsletter dedicated to providing you with the most pertinent information surrounding the stories, initiatives, and people within the counter human trafficking and sexual exploitation movement. To learn more about the The Liberty Coalition, visit: www.thelibertycoalition.com