Susan Sarandon Joins the Body Shop in Ending Child Trafficking

Are you aware that at least 1.2 million children and young people are exploited in the global sex trade each year? And it doesn’t just happen in some far away land, it happens in virtually every country, even right here in the ‘land of the free’.

Thankfully, the Body Shop and the Somaly Mam Foundation with many others are working together to prevent human trafficking and forced prostitution. Last Friday, July 30, 2010, Academy award-winner Susan Sarandon, Katrina Bowden (’30 Rock’) and Somaly Mam, founder of Somaly Mam Foundation, joined the Body Shop at the sophisticated Morgans Hotel Penthouse in New York City to kick off the second phase of the ‘US Stop Sex Trafficking of Children & Young People’ campaign.

The Body Shop Campaign

The Body Shop’s “US Stop Sex Trafficking of Children & Young People” campaign is encouraging Americans to lend their signatures to help lobby for “Safe Harbor” laws, protecting victims of sex trafficking from being arrested and prosecuted for prostitution. Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller and Uma Thurman, among others, have already lent their support to this campaign!

Take Action to Protect Children

Sex trafficking is now the third largest and fastest growing criminal industry in the world after illegal drugs and arms trafficking.  Strong laws and enforcement at a state level are crucial to protect children and young people. The US petition officially launches in The Body Shop stores online at www.thebodyshop.com/stop and in The Body Shop stores on Monday, August 2, 2010. Stop in or sign up online today.

Non-Profits Combating Human Trafficking

Somaly, founder of Somaly Mam Foundation, was born in a small Cambodian village and sold into sexual slavery by her grandfather at the age of 12. Imprisoned in a series of brothels for the next decade, she endured the brutality of human trafficking until she managed to escape with the help of a humanitarian worker. She founded the Somaly Mam Foundation in 2007 to help young girls, like herself, escape from forced prostitution and help in the fight to combat human trafficking.

Also involved in the fight to free children from exploitation, Carol Smolenski, Executive Director and Co-Founder of ECPAT USA was there. ECPAT is an acronym for End Child Prostitution and Trafficking.  ECPAT International operates in 75 countries as a network of organizations and individuals working to protect every child’s right to grow up free from sexual exploitation.

To find out how you also can join the fight against child prostitution and trafficking, visit their websites: www.somaly.org and www.ecpatusa.org.