Human Trafficking can take on many forms but many of the victims share similar backgrounds. The women who end up in trafficking situation are made vulnerable by a lack of education, financial opportunities and a support network.
This January we chose to highlight three businesses, founded and run by women, that are helping to give female survivors of sex trafficking the skills and support they need to live independent lives and break the cycle of poverty and abuse.
Badala International
Founder: Joelle McNamara
Helping women in: Africa
Badala created a micro-financing program for single mothers in impoverished communities who have been abandoned or widowed. Badala trains and hires them to make beautiful homewares, jewelry and bath products. With the income from making these products, these women are able to pay their living expenses and send their children to school, ending the cycle of poverty for generations. A portion of the profits from these goods is then reinvested into eduction initiatives. Students who qualify are given high school scholarships based on academic excellence, character, ambition and extreme need.
Sudara
Founder: Shannon Keith
Helping women in: India
Sudara is fighting against slavery and sex-trafficking by training women to sew. The apparel they make is comfortable, chic and accessibly priced. Since their founding hundreds of women have found freedom through living-wage employment. Many of the women have graduated from the training programs and started their own tailoring business; others have taken technology or cosmetology courses (also offered at some of the centers) and found great jobs in those fields.
Thistle Farms
Founder: Becca Stevens
Helping women in: Nashville, TN
Thistle Farms helps women stuck in a cycle of drug abuse and prostitution. At it’s base, it’s a 2 year home that women can live in, without the financial and emotional pressures that can push people into relapse. The women in the program are given jobs in Thistle Farms’ boutique bath and body company, doing everything from making soaps and lotions to marketing and PR, gaining valuable job skills and an even more valuable sense of self worth. These jobs pull them out of the poverty cycle and ready them for an independent life, all without a single dollar of tax payer money.
Every product you purchase from these companies helps create opportunities for the women making them. By buying a pair of pants, wooden serving tongs or moisturizer you are joining a cycle of hope and love and giving a women a chance at a life with honor and freedom.
Check out our Human Trafficking Awareness Survivors Collection for all the great products made by and supporting survivors of human trafficking.
