ABOUT Freedom Business

Freedom Business exists to create employment opportunities for survivors of human trafficking and those at-risk.

Understanding Freedom Business starts with understanding human trafficking. Today, 50 million people around the world are victims of human trafficking, also known as modern slavery.¹ This statistic is simply staggering. While awareness of this global crisis has grown, many are unfamiliar with what human trafficking is and how it happens.

Human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of threat, use of force, or other forms of coercion. Traffickers use means such as abduction, fraud, deception, or the abuse of power to gain control of their target victims. Essentially, traffickers identify then leverage their victims’ vulnerabilities in order to create dependency. This often includes the giving or receiving of payments or other benefits to achieve the initial consent of a person – sometimes even a family member – who has control over the intended victim.² Their end goal is labor exploitation – forced labor and sex trafficking which together amount to global profits of roughly $236 billion a year for traffickers, a number that has risen roughly 30% since 2014.³ An estimated 71% of enslaved people are women and girls, while men and boys account for 29%.⁴ Traffickers prey on socioeconomic vulnerabilities for their own gain.

THE VITAL NEED
FOR FREEDOM BUSINESS

The vulnerabilities of survivors do not disappear once they have exited their exploitive situation. The factors that made them vulnerable in the first place, such as a lack of education, job training, or employment opportunities, often still exist. The trauma of being trafficked then adds yet another layer of vulnerability. This leads to a startling level of re-trafficking.

To fight modern slavery and exploitation we need a strategy that addresses the economic vulnerabilities at the root of the problem. Freedom Business is that strategy.