Pepperdine student’s “Life Mission Show” benefits victims of human trafficking.
By Melonie Magruder / Special to The Malibu Times
The U.S. Department of State estimates that up to 800,000 people around the world, mostly women and children, are literally sold into slavery each year-a number that does not take into account the number of people trafficked within their own countries.
The vast majority of these victims are sold as sex workers, most of them underage and many of them under the age of 10.
Because this phenomenon is fueled by organized crime and a global market paying out more than $40 billion a year, international efforts to combat human trafficking face an upward hill battle.
Pepperdine senior in international studies and intercultural communications, Sara Ward, is taking an individual stake in the fight. This past weekend, she staged her first awareness and fundraising event to spread the word on modern-day slavery-a live fashion performance called “The Life Mission Show.”
“There is a chapter of the International Justice Mission on campus to combat human trafficking,” Ward said. “This is a huge organization of aid groups and lawyers who help these victims [who are] forced into brothels in Thailand and factories in India. I wanted to do something to help.”
Ward’s idea of a fashion show seemed antithetical to the scope of the human tragedy, but the sponsors and wardrobes came from companies who purchase their clothing through Fair Trade agreements that guarantee product created by non-exploited workers, including Armani Exchange and American Apparel.
“I was horrified to find that very young girls with no power over their lives were being sold as sex slaves for as little as $35,” Ward said. “Here in Malibu, we pay more than that for lunch.”
Determined to prove that her generation is not just an apathetic citizenry addicted to online gaming and FaceBook, Ward enlisted the help of friends as catwalk models and student campus groups as participants, and lined up some top notch entertainment like rocker Matt Wertz and neobeat slam poet Seth Walker. She also cajoled international aid organizations into event sponsorship and arranged for a first-rate sound system and stage presentation to unfold under a clear blue sky Sunday afternoon.
Student designers, as well, provided wardrobe for the amateur top models sashaying across the stage; the allure of the saucy, short skirts tempered by the sobering reminder of the show’s purpose-chains made from construction paper attached to their wrists.
Sponsors with product samples available to purchase (with proceeds being donated to the cause) included Tom’s Shoes, a line created by a former polo player who was dismayed to discover the number of shoeless, poverty-stricken children when he was visiting Argentina to play a rich man’s sport.
“Our shoes are designed like the Argentinean alpargata (sort of an espadrille),” Tom’s Shoes spokeswoman Ashley Ludwin said. “Our business model is to provide a free pair of new shoes to poor people in Argentina, South Africa or Ethiopia for every pair purchased.”
The Emancipation Network offered some of its silk bags and jackets produced in India by survivors of and those at-risk for human trafficking.
“Our founder, Sarah Symons, started this company in 2005 after she saw the documentary ‘Born into Brothels,'” spokeswoman Charity Rutan said. “The Emancipation Network establishes safe houses for these women and girls, provides therapy and training, and then buys their product to distribute in the U.S.”
Also speaking at the event was Isaac Amol, formerly from Sudan and a near victim of human trafficking himself.
“When I was a young child, my village in southern Sudan was attacked by government-backed forces (known today as Janjaweed, and who have terrorized the region of Darfur for years),” Amol said in an interview. “I had to run and hide in the jungle, where some village elders found me and took me to refugee camps in Ethiopia. If the Janjaweed had caught me, I would certainly have been sold into slavery.”
Amol eventually made it to the United States, where he studied and graduated from Point Loma Nazarene University in 2007 with a degree in criminal justice. His father had been killed in the attack, but he was able to reconnect with the rest of his family and recently returned to Sudan, where he saw his mother for the first time in 21 years.
“Justice is only one thing we lack in Sudan,” he said. “I hope to study international law and take justice back to my country someday.”
Ward plans to pursue law and work with either Teach for America or the Peace Corps after she graduates. She intends to divide the proceeds from her “Life Mission Fashion Show” between several nongovernmental organizations that battle human trafficking, including the International Justice Mission and UNICEF.
She said she is overwhelmed by the offers of contributions she has received for her project.
“But it will be another five or six years before I can take on this kind of thing again,” she said. “The paradigm is shifting, thankfully, but [running a] charity is exhausting.”
Ward’s effort brought in more than $29,500 and 500 guests to the event.