INNOCEAN Lends Support to Non-Profit, The Exodus Road Raising Awareness of International Child Trafficking and Child Labor Abuses

INNOCEAN, a leading advertising and branding agency is collaborating with The Exodus Road, an organization that partners with law enforcement to curtail rampant human trafficking crimes taking place throughout the world.

As the new school year has begun, social media has been filled with photographs taken by parents of their children holding up signs stating such sentiments as: “My 1st day of 3rd grade,” or “Happy 1st day of school” and the like.

Unfortunately, if pictures were taken of the thousands of children throughout the world who are victims of human trafficking, their signs might state: “My first day of forced labor,” or “My first day as a sex slave.”

Lori Martin, VP and Group Creative Director at INNOCEAN expands upon why the agency is taking on this cause: “We were scrolling our social feeds that were filled with happy ‘back to school’ pictures and the idea came to us that not every child is getting that experience. The issue of human trafficking is something that is important to us, and we wanted to share our resources to shine a light on it.”

This campaign aims to bring this awareness to the forefront. INNOCEAN has licensed existing photographs which were altered (with the photographer’s approval) to obscure the identities of some of these children who have been trafficked and is sensitively adapting them for use to be shared on The Exodus Road’s social media and other channels, to help drive further awareness of the issue. (Note that the subject’s faces will be obscured to protect their identities.)

The campaign will run on all of The Exodus Road’s social media beginning Wednesday, September 28. Additional content may be produced at a later date.

Links to social include:

• Instagram: @theexodusroad
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheExodusRoad
• Twitter: @theexodusroad

Photographer GMB Akash, an internationally recognized and awarded photographer has authorized his photography to be used as part of this project. Akash is the founder of The First Light Institute of Photography in Bangladesh dedicated to “help achieve my ultimate objective of providing basic education for street children, unprivileged talented students, and child laborers.”

“The Exodus Road started because we truly believe that each one of us can make a difference. No matter how overwhelming or big this global crisis may feel, you have the potential to bring change, and it’s needed right now,” states Laura Parker, CEO and Co-founder of The Exodus Road.

Through The Exodus Road’s work:
1,743 men, women, and children have been freed from human trafficking
964 traffickers and perpetrators have been arrested
1,475 survivors have been supported with aftercare
1,246 officers and citizens have been trained

Key Statistics on Human Trafficking

• 49.6 million people are in modern slavery on any given day, according to the International Labour Organization.

· 21.3 million of those are in forced labor.
· 6.3 million of those are in sexual exploitation.
· And 22 million are in forced marriage.

• Human trafficking happens in every country in the world, including the United States.
• At any given time, 1.63 million minors are in labor trafficking and 1.69 million are in commercial sexual exploitation.