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 $150 billion a year for traffickers, $99 billion of which comes from commercial sexual exploitation.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 Journey to Freedom
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Victims find freedom from exploitation through a variety of exit-ramps
Restoration organizations provide counselling and rehabilitative services to survivors
Freedom Businesses offer training and safe jobs in healing-centered workplaces
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, 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, but it is not without incredible challenges.
Freedom Business exists to create employment opportunities for survivors of Human Trafficking and those At Risk.
These businesses create a healing-centered workplace intentionally designed to support the healing journey of survivors and contribute to their holistic development. They uphold the Six Commitments as outlined in the Freedom Business Code of Excellence.
Today there are more than 110 Freedom Businesses operating in 30+ countries around the world. It is the mission of Freedom Business Alliance (FBA) to scale the Freedom Business Movement. Our vision is a job for every person healing from modern slavery and vulnerable to exploitation.
As an industry facilitator for Freedom Business, FBA removes the many barriers to growth and scale that no single business can address on its own. We connect the many players in the Freedom Business ecosystem, coordinate collective action, and set standards across the movement.
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- Global estimates of Modern Slavery: Forced Labour and forced marriage. (n.d.). Retrieved October 24, 2022, from https://publications.iom.int/books/global-estimates-modern-slavery-forced-labour-and-forced-marriage
- United Nations. (2000). Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. Retrieved from https://www.refworld.org/docid/4720706c0.html
- Human Rights First. “Human Trafficking by the Numbers.” Accessed July 31, 2019. https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/resource/human-trafficking-numbers.
- Free the Slaves.“Trafficking and Slavery Fact Sheet.” Accessed July 31, 2019. https://www.freetheslaves.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Trafficking-ans-Slavery-Fact-Sheet-April-2018.pdf
