Global Anti-Trafficking: become part of the movement

January is National Slavery & Human Trafficking Prevention Month.

The activity is human slavery. The International Labour Organization of the United Nations reports that there are more than 40 million enslaved people in the world and no country is immune.

To give a sense of how wide-spread human slavery is, Tim Ballard from Operation Underground Railroad says, “Slavery is the fastest growing crime in the world. It’s the third largest source of revenue for criminals, after the arms trade and drugs. Six million children are being victimized by trafficking. Criminals want those children, whether for prostitution, pornography, slave labor, or organ-harvesting.”

Human trafficking is a rapidly growing crime because it is lucrative. Each year it generates enough money to buy every Starbucks franchise in the world, every National Basketball Association team in the nation, and every Target store across the globe. The United Nations, and many thousands of other organizations are dedicated to reducing human trafficking, by 2030, eliminating it entirely.

My organization, Win This Fight, is working to help existing anti-trafficking organizations with two of their greatest needs: more funding and more awareness for their efforts.

Here’s how: We have organized a high-end, global auction designed to help people convert high-value tangible property into cash. The premise is, many wealthy people don’t have large amounts of cash available to donate to anti-trafficking organizations. However, they often have art, jewelry, historical collections, yachts, jets, or other high-value items that they’d be willing to donate.

Motivations for donating property to benefit the anti-trafficking organization of their choice include:

• Helping combat a global tragedy

• Converting tangible items to cash

• Creating tax deductions

• Creating a benefit from items that have little when they’re warehoused

• Making room for new items

• Helping publicize anti-trafficking efforts

• Supporting the anti-trafficking organization that they select

The Global Anti-Trafficking auction will be held in New York, possibly in 2022, depending on Covid-19’s impact on the economy. It’s a $100 million-dollar challenge and donations involved have to have a story. That’s because our goal is awareness as well as funds, and the donations so far are newsworthy.

As an example, one of the donations is a million-dollar necklace that belonged to Marlene Dietrich. Another is one of the world’s largest virtually perfect emeralds. It was found on the treasure ship Atocha that sank in 1622. The emerald was meant for the Queen of Spain. The most exciting so far is a 70-karat ruby that belonged to a Qing Dynasty Emperor.

One other item that may interest you: our name! It’s no accident that the initials are WTF. A neuroscientist, Terry Wu, selected the name. He pointed out that a name becomes more memorable if there’s something about it that makes people talk about it. In his view, and ours, WTF is exactly the acronym and right response to the horrors of human trafficking.

The problem of human trafficking is big and consequential. Whether you’re reporting on it or are inspired to get involved, visit Win This Fight to learn more.