SEATTLE, Washington — Marisol Nichols is a fairly well-known actor. She has played such diverse roles as Olivia from Friends, Kelly in Boy Meets World and Corinne in Teen Wolf. However, in addition to being a talented actress, Marisol Nichols fights modern slavery through her Foundation for a Slavery Free World.
Modern Day Slavery
Marisol Nichols had been hearing about human trafficking, particularly child sex trafficking, for a long time. For a while, she was able to ignore it. One day, however, she decided to look into the issue. To her great surprise, she learned that children all over the world are being kidnapped, trafficked and sexually exploited.
The U.S. is the number one culprit of child sex trafficking. Kidnapped children (and adults, for that matter) are sold on websites like now defunct backpage.com to anyone who wants them. Should they happen to be bought by someone who lives in an impoverished country, such as Cambodia, these children may then be forced to take part in sex tourism. In sex tourism, adults, usually white American males, visit foreign countries and pay to have sex with children.
Currently, roughly 40.3 million people are enslaved worldwide. Of those unfortunate people, 2 million of them are children. When Marisol Nichols found out about this, she could not sleep. She decided that not only did she have to do something about it, but that people might be more likely to take her efforts seriously because she’s a famous actress. So, she founded a nonprofit organization (NPO) called the Foundation for a Slavery Free World. Through it, Marisol Nichols fights modern slavery.
About Foundation for a Slavery Free World
Foundation for a Slavery Free World is an NPO that advocates on the issue of ending modern-day slavery to both the U.S. government and the general public. Marisol, the group’s executive director, speaks to senators, Congressmen, Homeland Security representatives, White House representatives, the Congressional Roundtable and even the U.N. about why they should pass stricter laws annihilating human trafficking. Her board of advisors, including John Ryan, Tim Ballard and Dr. Mary Shuttleworth, help her bring the issue of modern slavery to the forefront.
In addition, Foundation for a Slavery Free World partners with other organizations. Some, like the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, help them educate the general public about human trafficking. Others, like the McCain Institute for International Leadership, help them lecture to specific audiences about the evils of human trafficking. All the while, Foundation for a Slavery Free World receives funding from concerned citizens on its website.
The Impact of Marisol Nichols’ Foundation
While the website has not posted specific statistics on their successes, they assure us that many children have been rescued in part thanks to them. For example, Marisol Nichols went to an orphanage in Haiti that was populated entirely by children who had been rescued from human trafficking. While some children are able to return home to their parents after being rescued, most must be placed in orphanages where the staff takes care of them and helps them adjust to normal, everyday life.
Marisol has stated that, although none of these children will ever be the same again, they all seemed happy and vibrant in their new lives. Although the child sex trade is far from extinct in Haiti, these children are proof that many rescue attempts are successful.
Slavery still very much exists in the modern world. Children, in particular, are often sold to people who violate them and shatter their innocence. However, thanks to Marisol Nichols and her supporters at Foundation for a Slavery Free World, the child sex trade is running into problems that will not let up until slavery is a thing of the past. Marisol Nichols fights modern slavery, and every child rescued is a step in the right direction.
Link to original article from Borgen Magazine