ReThink Freedom Freedom United

Recording from a live event. 

As store aisles fill up with labels stamped with vaguely familiar certification logos, many of us have found ourselves asking: what does it all mean? Can I trust these certification bodies to tell me this product hasn’t been made with forced labor or deforestation or other social and environmental harms? And are companies sustainable if they source certified products? In this podcast, we ask these questions and more to experts on human rights and environmental protection in the cotton, seafood and cocoa sectors: Umida Nyizova, David Hammond, and Evelyn Bahn. 

Recording from online webinar -

From fashion to food, workers are subjected to forced labor in the production of our everyday items. So, what can we do about it? As individuals, changing our shopping choices, even stopping buying certain products altogether can feel like the most effective response. Governments might choose to implement import bans to prevent products tainted with forced labor from reaching their shelves like the recent Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in the U.S.   But are boycotts and import bans always best – and can we end slavery using these tools?   Tune in for a discussion breaking down this issue with Uyghur activist and forced labor expert Jewher Ilham, and labor rights expert Allison Gill.

Audio from Freedom Day webinar

On February 1, 1865 Abraham Lincoln signed a joint House and Senate resolution that would later be ratified as the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  The Amendment which proclaimed, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction” finally ended the legal practice of slavery in the United States. Or did it?   We're sitting down with Dorsey Nunn from Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, Sean Kyler from the Vera Institute of Justice and Max Parthas from the Abolish Slavery National Network to find out!  This Freedom Day, join the conversation and help us unpack the current state of incarcerated workers’ labor and rights.

Freedom United host a special panel event discussing the decriminalization of sex work with our expert panel as an alternative to the Nordic Model and how the decriminalization of sex work can help build resilience to trafficking.

We sit down with children's rights advocates Mavuto Banda, a former child worker and University of Hull doctoral student, Jonathan Blagbrough, Co-director of Children Unite, and Faith Manyala National Project Coordinator at ILO Kenya to ask a crucial question: is child labor always exploitative?

On this short episode, we discuss with the Freedom United community how orphanage trafficking occurs and why we are calling on volunteer tour operators to stop offering placements in orphanages.