THE FREEDOM GALLERY FOR GIRLS:
ART SUPPORTING THE STRENGTH, FREEDOM AND RIGHTS OF GIRLS IMPACTED BY MODERN DAY SLAVERY
50% OF PROCEEDS FROM ART PURCHASED IN OUR "SHOP" WILL BE DONATED TO
ROOM TO READ, THE SANAR INSTITUTE AND APNE AAP,
THREE ORGANIZATIONS SUCCESSFULLY SERVING THE RIGHTS OF GIRLS
THROUGH PREVENTION, ADVOCACY AND RESTORATION SERVICES.
100% OF DIRECT DONATIONS MADE BELOW WILL BE SPLIT BETWEEN ROOM TO READ, THE SANAR INSTITUTE AND
APNE AAP WOMEN WORLDWIDE.
About The Freedom Gallery for Girls
The Freedom Gallery for Girls uses the power of visual art to raise awareness of and to support the fight against the exploitation and oppression of girls impacted by sexual slavery. FGG artists have created the work of this show to face and fight this crisis. They are donating 50% (and more) of sales proceeds to Room to Read and Apne Aap, two NGOs selected for their successes in targeting prevention, healing, empowerment and advocacy in the regions where they are needed most. While art sales will directly support their critical work, the act of creating and viewing art to engage with this crisis aims to provide a context for contemplation, dialogue and transformation to increase awareness and deepen both the artist’s and viewers’ resolve to end modern day slavery and to join the fight for girl’s rights.
Artists were invited to participate based upon both the quality of their work and their interest in social justice and gender equality. The Freedom Gallery for Girls project will continue to expand and to galvanize artists to join this movement.
If you are interested in helping to grow this project or if you would like to participate as an artist in future exhibitions, please contact Julie Rosen at julierae100@gmail.com or submit questions through the contact tab on this site.
MODERN-DAY SLAVERY AND THE GLOBAL SEX TRADE
With millions of women and girls bound in the international sex trade, sex trafficking has earned a fitting epithet: modern-day slavery.
It’s difficult to estimate just how many women and girls are impacted by sex trafficking, in part because you can’t easily divide sex workers into those who are working voluntarily and involuntarily. But in their book Half the Sky, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn estimate that around 3 million women and girls (and a small number of boys) worldwide are currently enslaved in the sex trade — bought, held and forced into commercial sex work against their will. This figure may even be on the conservative side, as it doesn’t account for people who were intimidated into prostitution or the millions more under 18 who can’t consent to working in brothels.
The U.S. State Department’s tally is lower, with estimates that between 600,000 and 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year. Eighty percent of those trafficked are women and girls, mostly for sexual exploitation. But these figures overlook the millions more victims who are trafficked annually within their own national borders.
Whichever figure you choose, the outcome is the same — far more women and girls are shipped into brothels annually now, in the early 21st century, than African slaves were shipped into slave plantations each year in the 18th century.
Every abolition movement begins with expressing our discontent and demands.
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