Last year, slave traders made $32 Billion, more than Nike, Starbucks and Google combined.  Pervasive awareness and marketplace solutions are among the largest and best opportunities to significantly reverse the profitability from human trafficking.  

Slave-Free currently represents the biggest potential for a marketplace solution.  Using cameras and cell-phones, consumers upload photos of the Slave-Free label held against the products they buy thus creatively exhibiting the EXPANDING MARKET for the Slave-Free brand.  Consumers can then click on the brands they use at chainstorereaction.com to send messages to companies demanding their products be Slave-Free. 

How could the products we use today be made by slaves?  Slave labor drives down the price of raw materials.  Companies purchase the cheapest materials in order to sell their products at a reduced cost.  Consumers buy lower cost items, ultimately (though unknowingly) promoting slavery, and thus creating the $32 Billion business of the people trade, leaving over 20 Million people in forced labor (UN Working Group). 

However, by both creating market demand and facilitating corporate compliance, Slave-Free addresses the primary obstacles inhibiting a company’s examination of slave labor in their product chains.  Successful elimination results in the award of the Slave-Free label for those products investigated.   

Companies have already begun to express interest in the certification process to acquire the Slave-Free label.  However, supply equals demand.  Thus, it will ultimately be pervasive expansion of the global community requesting Slave-Free products and a website like slavefree.us to provide this community its platform.  Thousands of pictures displayed and emails sent by consumers “DEMANDING THE BRAND” will unavoidably force SUPPLY, thus CREATING CHANGE.  Furthermore, the eventual ubiquity of Slave- Free products indirectly expands awareness of the horrors of modern day slavery, resulting in an increase in market demand and creating a self-promoting circle.

In addition:

In the last two months since label development began, backing has already been garnered from the largest anti-trafficking organizations, the State Department and the UN.  Furthermore, a leading consulting company has expressed interest in leading the development of Slave-Free certification and investigation of product chains.  Well-known stakeholders from multiple sectors already have joined on in an advisory role, but financial backing is the primary obstacle hindering further development.

Other Successful Programs:  Slave-Free arose out of the Call+Response project, a theatrically released documentary graphically portraying the horrors of modern day slavery.  The film acts as a powerful Call, and asks audience members to Respond.  In effort to aid and provide a platform for this massive response, Call+Response created a number of accessible and high-impact tools.  In addition to Slave-Free and Chain Store Reaction described above, online tools include betheresponse.com (a social network of volunteers and activist organizations), critical mass (a mobile and email-based community who have signed up to receive short commitment calls to action),  Tag You're Free (a grassroots marketing stunt using stencils and cleaning products to create a buzz-worthy promotion for these tools) and Open Source Activism (a forum for putting forth creative ideas for change).

Location