The Current

I recently had the wonderful experience of sitting in my IJM office with a roomful of colleagues watching a telecast of an unprecedented cabinet-level meeting on modern day slavery.  The President’s Interagency Task Force on Trafficking met at the White House on March 15 to talk about the Obama Administration’s record on addressing slavery and trafficking at home and abroad and to propose new initiatives for the future. 

Chaired by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the meeting included, among others, the heads of the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Labor, as well as the Attorney General and leaders from USAID and the Domestic Policy Council. It was truly an historic occasion where one after another of the cabinet members reported on initiatives to end slavery at home and abroad.

I was particularly touched by Ambassador Lou CdeBaca’s remarks.  Ambassador CdeBaca is head of the TIP Office.   He linked today’s challenge of eradicating modern day slavery to America’s history, quoting from an 1864 letter found in the National Archives. The author is a former slave, Spotswood Rice, who has joined the Union Army.  He writes to his former owner about his still-enslaved daughter, Mary:  “I have no fears about getting Mary out of your hands.  The whole Government gives cheer to me…” 

That feeling of our “whole Government giving cheer” prevailed throughout the 90-minute meeting as one after another of the Cabinet members pledged to do more.  Secretary Clinton announced a government-wide program of fighting slavery at home, and also  referred to the importance of eliminating slave labor from our government’s own supply chain.  She noted, “We have new ways of looking at supply chains and policies so that can help us cut off the demand that traffickers cruelly exploit. That’s particularly important when you think about the buying power of the federal government.”

We were thrilled to hear our partner Slavery Footprint mentioned several times.  Slavery Footprint is the brilliant online survey instrument that tells Americans about slavery in the supply chains of the products they own and engages them in actions to reduce their “slavery footprint.”

We’ve learned that last week’s White House meeting was only the first of a number of high-level events relating to slavery eradication in the U.S. and abroad.  We at IJM feel pretty good about the fact that we started collecting signatures on a letter to President Obama on January 24, calling upon him to announce a Presidential Initiative to End Slavery!  To date, our letter has nearly 58,000 names on it, and more are pouring in every day.  Sounds to me like the White House is listening!

Sign your name on our letter to President Obama.

Watch the recording of the meeting on March 15.