Brazilian anti-slavery activist, and 2008 Freedom Award winner Leonardo Sakamoto runs a popular and influential blog on modern-day slavery, which has been nominated for a Deutche Welle International Blog Award, otherwise known as the BOBs. The award is given to “11 websites in 11 languages that champion the open exchange of ideas and freedom of expression.”
Blog do Sakamoto has been nominated under the category of ‘Special Topic Award Human Rights.’ Voting is open to the public until April 11. To cast your vote, go here, select ‘Blog do Sakomoto’ under ‘Special Topic Award Human Rights’ and register via Facebook and/or Twitter.
Sakamoto is the President of Reporter Brasil, a groundbreaking organization dedicated to rooting out slavery in supply chains, and making companies proven to use slave labor accountable. Reporter Brasil researches and maps out instances of slave labor, and brings this information to the general public, so businesses and consumers can use their purchase power to make slavery unprofitable. For his work, Leonardo was the co-winner of the inaugural Harriet Tubman Freedom Award, given annually by Free the Slaves.
A former journalist who has covered conflicts in East Timor, Angola and Pakistan, Sakamoto uses his media expertise to disseminate stories of slavery and human rights abuses to an international audience through videos, a radio program, and by reaching out to journalists in broadcast, web and print. Blog do Sakamoto, updated almost daily, is closely followed by journalists and activists. It is a rich source of information about labor rights and slavery—and how consumers are connected to these human rights abuses. (The blog is in portuguese—which proves challenging for those of us who can’t speak the language. We’re very grateful for Google Translate!)
Find out more about The BOBs here. And vote for Blog do Sakomoto today!