It is a familiar story: a child taken, a family frantic for help. But for 24 families in northern India, this time the story has a happy ending. Our inspiring new video shows the boys being rescued, and how spreading information about trafficking and slavery leads to freedom.
The families were struggling to free their teenage sons from a cookie factory far from home. Two dozen boys were tricked by a trafficker who promised good jobs. But the boys were forced to work all night without pay. They were locked-up during the day, sleeping in bare brick barracks on the factory roof under the sweltering Indian sun. The boys were rescued because the “Anti-Slavery Chariot” visited a village where some of the boys were from.
Free the Slaves frontline partner organization MSEMVS tours impoverished remote communities with the mobile information unit, to sound the alarm about the dangers of leaving home for work. One of the chariot’s most powerful tools: a telephone hotline to call for information and leave tips about trafficking cases. One of the families alerted the chariot team about the boys at the cookie factory, prompting a proper rescue with police and a support team.
The boys are now free to be boys once again.
To date, the chariot has reached more than 100,000 people in more than 150 villages. There have been more than 900 calls to the hotline.
With your help, the chariot will help free even more people. Its organizers want to reach another 150,000 villagers who are prey for traffickers.
We hope you will consider an annual gift that transforms lives and breaks the hold of slavery. Every gift is appreciated.
