I love the Olympics. I love art. I hate human trafficking. Here's a brilliant way anti-traffickers are using public art to teach people about the lies that traffickers tell--and they're doing it in London during the Olympics.
Visitors see signs like this one:
Earn more money and
support your family!
They're attached to giant sculptures shaped like gift boxes:
GIFT boxes are walk-in pieces of public art displayed all over London. They entice people inside by luring them with promises...but once inside they see a different reality:
And that, of course, is exactly what traffickers do--lure children and adults with false promises.
"During the summer of 2012 thousands of hopeful athletes will choose to travel from around the world to win gold at the Olympics," says Stop the Traffik and the UN Global Initiative to Fight Trafficking (UN.GIFT), which have teamed up to launch GIFT Box. "But every minute, of every hour, of every day, men, women and children are forced to travel around the world to make gold for someone else. They have been trafficked.
"Even as the athletes prepare for their arrival in the United Kingdom in pursuit of their dream of winning gold, other men and women are being forced into coming to the country in search of a better future, only to find that for them there is only ever one winner: their trafficker."
GIFT boxes are all over London for the Olympics and Para-Olympics. There's a map here.
Learn more at Stop the Traffik and UN GIFT. To read about the increase of human trafficking surrounding sporting events such as the Olympics, click here.
The Born2Fly Project educates at-risk children and their parents about the dangers of child trafficking through a strategic 6-week community campaign. Deets at www.born2fly.org.
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