Earlier this week I saw a picture on my Instagram feed of two friends of mine. They had large red X’s drawn and colored on the backs of their hands. You might recognize it as the icon for the End It Movement that works to raise awareness about the second largest global organized crime: human trafficking.
The horrific injustice of the sex trade is only one of the many issues being brought into a brighter spotlight. With the rise of social media, people are not only becoming more connected with their personal social circles but also with the world at large. Social media has become a stepping stool for activists to promote their causes, even if by merely informing people of the issue’s existence.
But this is no small feat. While education is only the first step towards reform, it is paramount if any change is to be accomplished at all. In an individualistic society, it is far too easy for us to get wrapped up in our own lives, but the prevalence of posts from organizations like Operation Underground Railroad, Shared Hope International, and the End it Movement on social medias bring the real issues of the world back home as they stare at us from the screens of our laptops and mobile devices.
From my experience, the raising awareness of human trafficking seems to increase in waves. The Super Bowl that rolled around a month ago spurred several articles that got inserted in people’s Facebook feeds. This is excellent for bringing the issue back into the forefront of people’s minds, but it also leads us to asking, “What is actually is being done to stop human trafficking?”
Turns out, my two friends posted their picture as a means of announcing that Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Carter and others have introduced the End Modern Slavery Initiative Act of 2015. According to an online news article by The Hill, “through the End Modern Slavery Initiative Act, resources will be directed towards creating sustainable law enforcement capacity so that governments of slavery-burdened countries can actually take the fight to the traffickers and slave owners.”
If the initiative works out, an invaluable impact could be made in some of the lives of the hundreds of thousands of victims—about half of them being minors—that make up the population of modern day slaves. It is also important to note that while the majority of those trafficked are female, 20 percent are male and that number rises to 30 percent when only counting children; they deserve just as strong of a voice as the rest.
With this new initiative underway, I hope to see much more than just awareness of human trafficking on the internet. I hope to see change and more action being taken to end one of the heaviest and deadliest of issues that infests our world.
