The Barometer Online

Issue date: 4/20/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Contributed Photo The Student Abolitionists held a demonstration in the MU quad on Thursday to promote awareness of human trafficking. The group has more activities planned, including a speaker and film screening.

Many people would agree that slavery still exists today, but not many would admit that slavery still exists in Oregon and throughout the United States.

The Student Abolitionists, a new student organization, is a group of students who are driven to bring change and justice to the world. The group's main focus is raising awareness about human trafficking of sex slavery and forced labor.

According to the Polaris Project, which is an organization aimed at combating human trafficking and modern-day slavery, 27 million people are affected by modern-day slavery worldwide.

In 2007, more than 800,000 people were trafficked across international borders. The Polaris Project stated that 50 percent of the transnational victims were children.

Kristin Rudolph, a sophomore in animal sciences, is the president of the Student Abolitionists group at Oregon State. The group is hosting a series of events to educate others about the fact that slavery still exists today.

The Polaris Project also estimated the total yearly profits that are generated by the human trafficking industry to be $32 billion. Rudolph said the annual profit is five times more than the annual profits of Nike, Google and Starbucks combined.

Rudolph volunteered at a battered women's shelter in Portland where she experienced the effects of the human trafficking industry first hand. She spoke of an anonymous woman who called the shelter regularly just to talk about her experience, as she had been enslaved in Portland.

"I was really inspired while I was still volunteering there," Rudolph said. Her experiences made the statistics ring true. "It's really sick, and it's happening in Portland."

The Polaris Project said the most recent government statistic of the number of foreign nationals trafficked into the United States each year ranges between 14,500 and 17,500 people.

U.S. citizens are also victims of human trafficking that occurs within the nation's border. According to the Polaris Project, the U.S. has a large domestic component of human trafficking for purposes that include both sexual and labor exploitation.

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