Looi Shen-Wei, Brendan 10T Mrs Clayton

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Pretend you are a spokesperson for the Walk Free foundation.
Imagine that you are addressing a crowd that has gathered at a
protest rally your organisation has organised.
Human Trafficking.
Fear, confusion, terror, loneliness and despair. These
feelings are just words to us but to a person who is a victim
of human trafficking, this is their world. Imagine being taken
away from everything you know, afraid for your life every
second as you sit on a cold metal ground being moved all over
the world, held against your will. Tell me, how would you
feel? Would you be able to hold onto your sanity or would you
give up? Think about it. My name is Brendan Looi and I am here
as a representative of the Walk Free Foundation.
We know what human trafficking is, so how can we honestly
believe that we live in a free world? We make choices in our
lives and when we are faced with making a decision we
invariably come to a realisation; there is a difference
between looking at the path and truly walking it. We are not
here to spectate, we are here to create something more, to
bring us towards a world filled with justice and fighting
against the evils of our modern world. Lets be here to change
lives. Lets be here to become something more than we are.
Lets be here to make sure there is a brighter future for
everyone and not just our kin because we can do so much more
than we think we are capable of.
How long can we sit back here and pretend that human
trafficking does not affect us? What if this was your child?
Or your sister or brother? Casualties of this war more often
than not live without knowing if their families are safe or
alive. Some people are born into these poor and unfortunate
circumstances simply because of fate. Imagine if you were born
into a world where you did not know that you had rights or
choices. What would you do to make your life a little better
based on what you understood of it?
30 million people today are being trafficked. Even while you
are listening to me, every second that you spend here,
approximately 2 people are kidnapped, beaten and tortured into
human slavery. Now, that may not sound like a huge number but
that means that every hour 120 people are trafficked, in a
day, 2,880 people. What if in a year? That would add up to
about 1 million people. These are people just like us, they
are not slaves, if we can live in a free world where we can
make money, and we can have the freedom to work and live
anywhere we want, what makes them different? We call this
Looi Shen-Wei, Brendan 10T Mrs Clayton
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inhumane yet we choose to remain ignorant. However, with your
presence here today I may be wrong. We stand here today for
one reason; and one reason only. That is to unite in the fight
against human trafficking.
About a month ago, I witnessed the horror of human trafficking
first hand. There was a young child begging on the street.
When I approached her, she told me that she came from Myanmar
and she was forced to beg to pay off her familys debt.
Instead of being a child and having a childhood, there she was
going up to strangers and pleading with them for an ounce of
kindness. Tell me, does she deserve this? Does she deserve to
be stripped of all her rights as a human being to pay off a
debt which wasnt even hers to begin with? I chose to make a
difference. I called the authorities for help and left her in
their capable hands. I do not know what happened to her
however I hope that she is finally in a safer place. The
children, the men and the women should not have to do this;
they are all like us. They all just wanted a better future yet
they were taken advantage of and now they are here, begging
for food and money that they wished they had; and the men and
women walking past that little girl, what did they do?
Absolutely nothing; as if they were in a state of trance. The
police should try harder to tackle these problems, especially
when a child is involved. It is not enough for organizations
to create awareness without the people in power implementing
it.
Our lives begin to end the day that we become silent about
things that matter. This was said by Martin Luther King Jr.
during a time when America was not liberated; it enslaved and
divided races and one race was looking down on the other, even
when they knew that they were all the same and even when they
knew that they could live together in peace and harmony.
Those who hold others captive are not humans; but monsters and
they are the things which are the vermin of this earth and
prevent the world from progressing. They leverage off innocent
girls, young boys and good people; stealing their organs,
taking away their innocence and enslaving them. This is modern
slavery and it is shocking to admit that this is the world we
live in. How many of us are truly aware of the nefarious
plague which affects our society?
We, at the Walk Free Foundation, aim to provide knowledge and
awareness of what modern slavery is and how prevalent it is in
todays society. In the world there are 196 countries. Walk
Free Foundation took a Global Survey Index for 162 of those
countries. Only 8 countries out of all the countries we have
Looi Shen-Wei, Brendan 10T Mrs Clayton
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surveyed have a less than 20% chance of people being
trafficked and 154 of them have a medium to high percentage of
people being trafficked. We at Walk Free also support many
movements against modern slavery such as; helping to end
modern slavery in Hong Kong, to help stop domestic slavery in
Delhi and to help report sweatshops. This is not the end of
the list, however.
Organisations such as ours and the United Nations Global
Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking were established to
extirpate human trafficking and reduce the number of victims.
It is impossible to fight human trafficking alone, therefore
most governments sign treaties in order to support each
others efforts. Schools can only provide education and create
caution, however many victims are not privileged to attend
school, making it difficult to educate them on the dangers
that they may face. You can help by signing petitions and
coming to rallies to contribute and show your support for our
work. You can also help by sharing information and being
cognisant of your surroundings by not turning a blind eye. You
could save someone simply by noticing their existence.
However, it doesnt stop there. These victims have survived
through hell; they have been traumatised and manipulated into
a world of desolation. We can provide them with hope and be
there to support them, mentally and physically, as well as to
give them a chance to start over.
All of us, no matter who we are or what status we have in
society, we have a social responsibility to deracinate the
problem.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good
men to do nothing. Edmund Burke. I say that we are those
good people. I say that we are the last hope for those who are
deprived of their freedom. I say that we will do everything we
can to destroy whatever is left of human trafficking.
We must unite to head into the light. Let no stone be
unturned, let the world hear us, let the men and women who are
involved in the trade fear us as we will put an end to their
oppression. You can intimidate one of us but you will fail to
scare all of us. We will not be silenced.
It is time for us rise as one. It is time for us to end this
war. It is time.
Thank you.


Looi Shen-Wei, Brendan 10T Mrs Clayton
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Sources: United Nations, Global Slavery Index, Global Survey
Index, Walkfree Foundation, Britannica, Various books,
experience, BBC, NYT, Times Magazine, Star Newspaper,