New App helps Combat Human Trafficking in South Africa

Not For Sale is joining forces with Mxit, Africa’s largest social networking service, to combat human trafficking in South Africa.

With over 40 million users in South Africa alone, Mxit is Africa’s largest social media platform in Africa--larger than Facebook or Twitter. Not For Sale and MixIt have developed an educational platform on human trafficking that will be utilized as a survey for mobile phones.

Using the format of 11 ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions on human trafficking, users of Mxit are
encouraged and incentivized through gamification (offering airtime, credits etc.) to take
the survey produced by Not For Sale. At the end of the survey, if users feel or know
someone affected by trafficking, a toll-free number is provided for them to report
instances.

Since 2010, Not For Sale South Africa has assisted law enforcement in over 70 cases of
human trafficking. The most prevalent forms of human trafficking seen in South Africa
are sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, forced marriage, and agricultural labor.
Though, sexual exploitation makes up 75% of those having survived trafficking.

Internally, most victims come from poor regions or rural areas and informal settlements.
They are lured by hopes of a possible job in the city. Recruiters are often individuals
known intimately by the victim. Internationally, women and girls living in poor regions
of countries like China, Russia, Thailand, and Bulgaria are trafficked to South Africa for
sex. Of the cases Not For Sale South Africa has assisted with since 2010, 60% have been
foreigners.

With access to Mxit’s user base of close to 40 million mobile customers, we expect up to
150,000 people to answer the survey in the next couple of months. This will allow Not
For Sale to reach a significant number of individuals with up-to-date information and
resources on human trafficking, in areas where such information is usually inaccessible.
This outreach will significantly increase the general understanding of human trafficking
in South Africa, while utilizing data to create economic opportunities that will prevent
human trafficking in South Africa before it begins. This project is piloting in South
Africa; however, Not For Sale and Mxit have plans to extend the platform to a number of
other African countries.

http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/ 
Not For Sale
270 Capistrano Road, Suite 2
Half Moon Bay, Calif.
www.notforsalecampaign.org
For More Information Contact:
Jessica Henry 415-794-9049
Jessica@notforsalecampaign.org
About Not For Sale
Not For Sale creates tools that engage business, government, and grassroots in order to incubate and grow
social enterprises to benefit enslaved and vulnerable communities. There are over 30 million slaves in the world
today, more than at any other point in history. Human trafficking is the fastest-growing criminal industry
worldwide and generates more than $32 billion per year.

Understanding Modern Slavery in the Supply Chain & Why Blanket Boycotts May Not be Best

Understanding where our products come from is an important part of understanding one of the underlying factors in modern slavery today. From cotton to cocoa, rugs to cell phones, almost every supply chain has some amount of slavery in it.

This is one of the hardest parts of slavery to weed out. To combat slavery in the supply chain, abolitionist organizations must work with companies and suppliers to help them find cases of slavery and remove it from their supply chain. This is how long term solutions can be accomplished as has been seen with the Cocoa Initiative, discussed by Kevin Bales, President of Free the Slaves.

It's often difficult for businesses to wipe out slavery from their supply chains. Take for instance cocoa farms along the ivory coast. Chocolate companies typically buy their cocoa from a broker, who buys it from a broker, who buys it from a group of farmers, where a smaller percentage of these farmers may use slaves.

Some might say, "Let's boycott their chocolate." The problem with this blanket approach is that it may do more harm than good. This hurts the cocoa business, which hurts the brokers, which hurts the group of farmers, of which a large percentage are legitimate farmers on the Ivory Coast struggling to survive. If their farms fail because their sales have dropped, they can easily be enslaved on slave farms or may become a slave farm themselves to produce better margins and just survive.

Because the overhead is so cheap for slave labor, this can grow the slave cycle instead of breaking it.

That's why it's critical to weed out the small percentage of slavery in the product chain at the root. When businesses and anti-slavery groups work together, I mean really team up, this can take place. The organizations can help identify and root out slavery in the supply chain and the companies can expend the resources to make sure local authorities are notified and that it gets removed from their purchases by brokers.

If you know of a company with slavery in their product chain, contact the company to make them aware of the problem along with your state legislators and local news. Nothing will get a company motivated to investigate and cleanup their product chain like a little bad PR. This is actually how the chocolate companies started making changes and decided to partner up with government and abolitionist groups. Boycotts can and do have this effect as well. You just have to remember their may be greater consequences to a blanket boycott than you might realize.

With that said, The International Labour Rights Forum and Not For Sale has created a Free 2 Work APP for the Android and iPhone, which rates companies on their supply chain and makes it easy to learn more about companies and share information with friends. Here's a quick video about it. DOWNLOAD THE APP HERE.

Source: Not For Sale