Not For Sale

While we’d like to think that slavery was abolished back in the early 1800s, the truth is there are more slaves in the world at this moment than at any other time in history.

Some conservative estimates suggest that around thirty million people are enslaved today.

It’s a shocking statistic but even more shocking is that slavery exists in countries such as the USA and Australia. Human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal activity in the world.

How can you be sure that the products and services you buy aren’t contributing to slavery in our world?

Not for Sale began when organization president, David Batstone, discovered that one of his favourite Indian restaurants in the US was using trafficked women from India as part of its labour force. The restaurant’s trafficking business was exposed when one of the women was killed in a gas leak.

A professor of Ethics at the University of San Francisco, David Batstone is also founder and president of Right Reality, an international social venture firm. He’s authored seven books, the two most recent being Not for Sale
and Saving the Corporate Soul.

David created Not For Sale as part of his all-consuming passion to stop modern day slavery.

Not For Sale is a Campaign of students, artists, entrepreneurs, people of faith, athletes, law enforcement officers, politicians, social workers, skilled professionals, and all justice seekers united to fight the global slave trade and end human trafficking.

The Campaign aims to recruit, educate, and mobilize an international grassroots social movement that effectively combats human trafficking and slavery through “Smart Activism”. It deploys innovative solutions for every individual to re-abolish slavery — in their own backyards and across the globe.

Not For Sale believes that everyone has a skill to contribute that can free an individual living in bondage, and together we can stop human trafficking and end slavery in our lifetime.

Do you want to make a difference? I recently spoke to David Batstone and singer/songwriter/social activist Brant Christopher about the Not For Sale campaign for my radio programme on 98.5 Sonshine FM. Click on the play button on the audio player at the bottom of this post to hear David and Brant talk about how you can be part of the solution.



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I Get It Now

I’m finding more and more that being a parent myself helps me understand my own parents better. I guess it’s only natural that I’m seeing things through a dad’s eyes these days.

I remember at times when I was ill as a child that my dad would start feeling ill too. He didn’t like seeing his kids sick and so his body would react to knowing that his children weren’t feeling 100%.

Our son James starting feeling unwell just before dinner last night, which is always better than afterwards because I know it can’t have been my cooking. He only ate a little of his dinner because he was getting stomach cramps. A little while after going to bed he became very distressed and then threw up a couple of times.

He’s a whole lot better today but seeing him hurting last night sent my tummy into a bit of a spin. I didn’t just feel sorry for him; it made me feel physically ill.

I only wish that my father was still around so that I could say, “Hey dad, I get it now.”

Have you started seeing things differently as you move through different stages of life? Has getting a little older helped you to see things from someone else’s perspective? I’d love to read your experiences. Please leave a comment or two.



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