Can you pledge to combat human trafficking with Grace + Grit Social Enterprise? 

Human Trafficking is big business. According to the UNODC it is the third most lucrative illegal trade in the world after drugs and arms trafficking.  With virtually every country in the world affected either as a source, transit or destination country, human trafficking is one of the biggest global problems of our time. Currently, nearly 40 million people worldwide are being exploited in the trafficking industry including women, children and increasingly men.

I'm a social innovator on a mission to find a sustainable solution to  human trafficking.  Grace + Grit Social Enterprise is the outcome of my four year PhD social marketing research program on human trafficking with the aim of generating multistream insights that can inform the design of more appropriate policies and programmes to combat the problem.

My research found that human trafficking is driven by a complex range of push and pull factors including:

• oppressive socioeconomic conditions including structural unemployment
• family and sociocultural influences
• the traditional practice of child fostering, which increases children's vulnerability to trafficking. 
• consequently, some human trafficking survivors and other vulnerable jobseekers have adopted a misguided belief in the emancipatory potential of human trafficking as an opportunity for employment, and human traffickers as employment agents.

In reality, however, these vulnerable people are exchanging one form of oppression for another, as they are held in debt-bondage for several years by their traffickers, and forced to work under exploitative conditions to repay disproportionately large sums of money to their traffickers. Worse yet, when some of these individuals are rescued from human trafficking, they are often stigmatised and further marginalised upon return home, leaving them worse off and with little choice than to return to the familiar business of human trafficking. Tragically, some of these survivors become human traffickers themselves and end up recruiting other vulnerable jobseekers into the industry, resulting in a vicious cycle of oppression and false consciousness in human trafficking.

Grace + Grit Social Enterprise aims to disrupt the human trafficking industry by empowering survivors and vulnerable jobseekers with access to legitimate training and employment opportunities, which directly compete with the perceived benefits of human trafficking. Grace + Grit Social Enterprise offer a superior alternative to human trafficking through five key initiatives:

1. New Business Incubators – provides the space, startup funds, training and mentorship human trafficking survivors and other vulnerable jobseekers need to start and sustain a new business
2. Capacity Building Scholarships – for jobseekers from communities most vulnerable to human trafficking to undertake bonded skills training in a developed country
3. Grace + Grit Jobmatching platform - to reduce jobseekers' vulnerability to human trafficking by improving their access to legitimate training and employment opportunities
4. Stargirl Family Foundation – a fund that keeps families from vulnerable communities together and works to reduce the need for child fostering and risk of child trafficking
5. Grace + Grit Shop - where you can buy statement clothing and accessories to support Grace + Grit Social Enterprise.

I've partnered with a local NGO Idia Renaissance to pilot our first initiative - new business incubator -  a small fast food restaurant that will host up to four human trafficking survivors. This incubator will provide the space, equipment, startup funds, training and mentorship these four survivors need to operate and sustain a fast food restaurant. 

Budget: $6,500. Cost breakdown below

My biggest challenge at the moment is raising funds to roll out each initiative. As such, any amount you can donate will help us  get one step closer to combatting human trafficking. Every dollar counts! If we don't meet our target of $6,500 we lose all funds donated so far so please get behind this important initiative and together, we just might combat human trafficking!