Save Every Slave

Photo Credit: Eric Evans

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Written by Haley McCabe

Imagine something that takes one minute—buy a pack of gum, tie a tie, walk down the street. Now imagine that 2 children are sold into slavery every minute. This isn’t your imagination, it’s the truth, and it only gets worse.

There are 27 million slaves in the world today—more than at the height of the transatlantic slave trade. Elizabeth Sherwin and Sydney Young, co-presidents of M-A’s Save Every Slave Club say that when people hear this statistic they ask “But that’s in other countries, right?” Wrong.

There are 200,000 slaves in the United States alone. Of all the slaves in the world, 50% are children and 80% are women. Sherwin shares the club’s purpose:

“Our purpose is to raise awareness of slavery in the community and raise funds for the prevention.”

Many students have not heard of the Save Every Slave Club because it is brand new on campus this year, but that does not mean that they do not have big plans. On January 15^th, the Save Every Slave Club members are showing a 30-minute video entitled “At the End of Slavery.” “At the End of Slavery” is a film which aims to raise awareness of modern-day slavery. The movie will be shown during periods 1-6. Young explains her club’s other aspirations for the showing:

“We are planning on writing a letter to a major chocolate company because the cocoa used to make the chocolate could be picked with slave labor. At the movie, we want to have M-A students sign the letter to encourage the manufactures to take more drastic measures to clean the supply chain.”

Along with the movie, the Save Every Slave Club recently wrapped up a chocolate drive. They sold only Fair Trade Chocolate, meaning the cocoa was picked with fair labor and it is certified organic.

Young and Sherwin have been planning to start this club for nearly a year. Last year, Young wrote her research paper on child sex trafficking. Her choice of topic shed light on the injustices of slavery in the modern world. After this, Young attended a Freedom Summit, a 2-day conference on human trafficking and prevention. Sherwin and Young made the decision to start the club over this past summer.

This is an important issue that isn’t being talked about” Young says, “Elizabeth [Sherwin] and I are very passionate about the justice that needs to be served.”

The Save Every Slave Club meets every Tuesday in E-21.

1. Elizabeth Sherwin Says:
   December 14th, 2009 at 1:22 pm

   Haley, this is wonderfully written! Thanks so much!

   [Reply]