Free the Slaves Inc

In 18 years as a pioneering anti-slavery organization, we have freed more than 13,000 people from slavery. We have educated more than 450,000 people to prevent them from becoming slaves. We have helped police arrest hundreds of traffickers. We have alerted the world to the fact that slavery still exists, and have demonstrated that, with your help, human trafficking can be overcome.

Free the Slaves has a comprehensive solution for ending slavery.  FTS is an international anti-slavery and human rights advocacy and capacity-building organization. FTS works in close partnership with local grassroots organizations to address the root causes of slavery in five countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Haiti, India, and Nepal.  FTS’ partners empower individuals and communities to liberate themselves, protect themselves from enslavement, and address the poverty and discrimination that makes them vulnerable to victimization. 

As an example, consider the story of Sanjali, a young woman from Basai village in the deeply impoverished and underdeveloped northern Indian state of Bihar. Sanjali was trafficked into a brothel in Delhi’s notoriously violent red light district where thousands of girls are trapped, beaten, raped, and forced into prostitution. Fortunately for Sanjali, the Community Vigilance Committee (a community group organized to eradicate and resist slavery) in her home village had received specialized training from a FTS partner, and recognized that the distant relative who had offered to marry her had in fact trafficked her to a brothel. The CVC knew how to access a network of NGOs that tracked her down and organized a raid to liberate Sanjali and return her to Basai. By then, however, Sanjali was pregnant and was shunned by the very community that had organized to rescue her. When FTS’ South Asia Director and staff from their partner NGO recognized the situation, they began a dialogue with the CVC leaders, digging deeper into the processes that brought Sanjali into prostitution and what her role within the community could be. Over time, the CVC experienced a shift in attitudes toward women and children and a deeper rejection of trafficking and the conditions that lead to trafficking.

A year later, Sanjali was a respected member of the CVC and had launched her own tailoring business. This was an important moment for the maturity of the CVC, whose members were now reaching out to neighboring villages to identify the traffickers preying on their communities. The change in attitudes towards women within their community addressed one of the root causes that made girls vulnerable to trafficking and, as the CVC reinforces this new attitude in its members through regular meetings, this change is sustained and sees ripple effects in other human rights and economic gains.