The Human Impact

A cast-off bra can do more to change the world than you might think.

CNN Freedom Project, which shines the spotlight on the perils of modern-day slavery and human trafficking, aims to show us how in a 30-minute documentary airing on Feb. 15, 2013, at 11:30 a.m. EST on the CNN television network.

“Mozambique or Bust”, narrated by actress Mira Sorvino — who also serves as U.N. goodwill ambassador against human trafficking — tells the tale of how Denver-based charity Free the Girls collected 34,000 donated bras and recruited help from Truckers Against Human Trafficking and other volunteers to transport them via Chicago to Mozambique.

The bras, considered a luxury item in the African country, are given to sex-trafficking survivors who sell them in used clothing markets.

“When we first reported the story (in Feb. 2012), Free the Girls had collected more than 20,000 bras and couldn’t afford to ship them to Africa,” said Lisa Cohen, supervising producer at CNN Freedom Project.

“But one CNN viewer saw the story and took action, triggering a chain reaction of kindness and goodwill. This is the story of four ordinary people, coming together to do something extraordinary,” Cohen told TrustLaw.

When I arrived in India some years back as a single mother and full-time journalist, there was one thing I knew I wouldn’t have to worry about – finding domestic help.

Maids, nannies, drivers, cooks and cleaners are ten-a-penny amongst the urban middle classes here.

In New Delhi’s neighbourhoods, for example, most families employ full- or part-time help, who do everything from feeding and bathing babies and cooking family meals to sweeping and washing floors.

In Haiti, it’s the little girl who is kept home from school and forced to clean her sister’s house or else be beaten with electric cables.

Thousands of miles away in India, it’s the shy, young woman left at the mercy of an agent who finds her a job as a maid but takes her earnings. In Bahrain, it’s the Filippino domestic worker who, abused and exploited by her employer, cannot leave.

Millions of people around the world today are trapped in slavery, like seven-year-old Wisline was in Haiti.