Ricky Martin Foundation-Say NO to Human Trafficking

  PEOPLE FOR CHILDREN

Our principal project launched in 2004 was created to educate, denounce  and abolish human trafficking and modern day slavery, with special emphasis on children. As advocates of human rights, we aim to serve as a catalyst for awareness, raising efforts on the grave issues regarding child exploitation. 
Our goal is to syndicate Public Service Announcements and create initiatives geared toward the elimination of sex trafficking, commercial sexual exploitation, prostitution, debt bondage, forced labor, sex slavery, among other forms of slavery. UNICEF estimates that 1.2 million children are trafficked worldwide every year. 



In order to provide solutions through the creation of holistic centers that will serve children as a safe haven from exploitation. We aim to open our first Center in September  2011. As a public foundation, we rely on the generosity of corporations and individuals to achieve our goals on behalf of children's rights.

The mission of the Project to End Human Trafficking is to work toward the elimination of trafficking in persons, especially women and children trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation. PEHT engages in anti-trafficking coalition building, educational outreach, direct service to victims, and collaboration with other national and international organizations in the global fight against human trafficking.

• Human trafficking refers to all acts related to the recruitment, transport, sale, or purchase of individuals through force, fraud or other coercive means for the purpose of economic exploitation (Trafficking in Persons Report, 2008).
• 12.3 million people are enslaved worldwide (International Labor Organization).
• Other estimates list that four million (Farr, 2005) to 27 million (Bales, 1999) people are held in forced labor or sexual slavery at any given point in time.
• 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders annually, of whom approximately 80 percent are women and girls, and up to 50 percent are minors (Trafficking in Persons Report, 2008).

Human Trafficking

What is Human Trafficking?

Human trafficking is the second largest and fastest growing criminal industry in the world. Victims experience a loss of freedom and exploitation at the hands of their traffickers who buy and sell them in pursuit of profit. As a result, human trafficking is commonly known as modern-day slavery.

In human trafficking situations, traffickers gain complete control over victims and force them into the labor, services, or commercial sex industry in order to generate profit from their labor and commercial sex acts. Some of the forms of violence traffickers use to control their victims include brutal beatings, rape, lies and deception, threats of serious harm or familial harm, and psychological abuse.