She was barely as tall as the podium, but the embodiment of the type of courage espoused by the Free the Slaves foundation at its annual Freedom Awards show Tuesday had little trouble commanding the stage. Standing few feet in front of her A-list Hollywood presenters, Vietnamese native Sina Vann talked about what it meant to receive the $10,000 prize and recognition for helping run a foundation that finds, frees and treats girls held in sexual slavery in Cambodia.

Vann knows well what those girls endure. For two years, between the ages of 13 and 15, she was held as a sex slave in Cambodia, tortured and forced to have sex with dozens of men a day. Since her escape, she has become a leading activist in fighting sexual slavery “I fight every day for this, thank you,” she said on the stage, holding her award. “Thank you for making my dream come true.”

It was a climactic moment for Free the Slaves, a foundation dedicated to battling a cause its leaders said was often overlooked, even though it ensnares about 27 million people around the globe–and an estimated 14,500 per year in the U.S., according to government estimates.

To support its battle against modern slavery, Free the Slaves grants several awards each year to leading activists on the front lines of the effort, honors that went exclusively to women this year.

And despite the pomp and star power at the University of Southern California’s Bovard Auditorium Tuesday, it was their speeches–including a rousing acceptance delivered by an illiterate Pakistani woman named Veero in her native language–that provided the highlights.

Just after Veero accepted her award, Tahamina Mondal, a vibrant, effusive woman whose organization Shramajibee Mahila Samity sends women undercover to expose domestic slavery in India, shouted her group’s motto from the stage, prompting the audience to follow. “We will fight,” she yelled, a fist in the air. “We will win!”

Other winners on the night included Alexis Weiss and Betsy Bramon, two recent college graduates who actively work to fight contemporary slavery. Weiss helped build legal cases against sex traffickers in Tenness and Ghana, and Bramon has worked to find new ways to rehabilitate slavery survivors in Cambodia.

Several of the winners and presenters who spoke to TakePart before the event stressed the need for awareness of modern slavery, which exists at historically high levels, according to several of the winners.
“The first thing you need to do is understand that it’s happening, that 27 million people who are being used today as modern-day slaves,” said 19-year-old Given Kachepa, who was bonded into slavery in the U.S. in the late 1990s. An orphan from Zambia, he was brought the U.S. under false pretenses to sing in a choir, but was mistreated, held against his will and never paid.

“Then, you can also call people, talk to your principals in your schools [so] that they’re educating the young kids and teachers because that’s where we need the knowledge,” he said.

Others agreed.

“I think most people are pretty alarmed and pretty surprised that slavery still exists,” Weiss said. “When they think of slavery, they think of something that was abolished in the middle of the 19th century and not something that exists today.”

One of the best ways to keep it from happening Bramon said, was simply to inform people of the reach and scope of modern slavery.

“One of the most important aspects of prevention is education. I think a lot of people don’t really understand what trafficking is and it’s already kind of a part of our framework,” she said. Illicit operations such as prostitution and domestic servitude often contain elements of slavery, she said.
Beyond awareness, Mondal said people should lend support those who are engaged in extricating themselves or others from slavery.

“The one thing I think people should know is that changing anybody’s condition, it’s not possible without people being organized and being in a movement … [enslaved] people who are who are poor, who are oppressed should be organized, they should struggle to get their own rights,” she said.
Fostering that organization is part of SMS’s mission, she said.

“That is what we think our work is, and we want people’s support for that. For people to struggle, to be in movements, and for people to support them.”

Tuesday’s event was a gala affair, with musical numbers, video presentations and a red-carpet entry for the winners and supporters such as Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, and Dancing with the Stars’ Maksim Chmerkovskiy, Emmet Smith and Maurice Greene.

But it was presence of people like Vann that provided the evening’s emotional oomph. Vann said she plans to use her prize to open a small restaurant to employ former Cambodian slaves while they recover and get back on their feet.

“I am very happy because the world concerned about us, the victims,” she said through an interpreter about receiving the award. “[They] welcome us to go back to society with honor and dignity.

What can you do?
Free the Slaves Freedom Award winners give advice

Tahamina Mondal - Shramajibee Mahila Samity

“One thing would be to keep their eyes open, their eyes and ears open, and to understand that slavery doesn’t exist out there but that it exists here also. … and also that products that are produced in our countries are cheap for you and available for you because there is a slavery element in that. Therefore, as consumers when we live here in America we are actually consuming products of this kind and people should be aware of that.”

Sina Vann - Voices of Change, Somaly Mam Foundation

“Please help the victims. Because if you don’t help us we would die by AIDS, by other diseases, by other abuses. We only speak the truth, whatever happens for the victims, what problems, what situations what circumstances they are facing. … Tourists who go to Cambodia, please go as tourists but not through sex, not to seek for it.”

Betsy Bramon - Anne Templeton Zimmerman Fellow

“A big part of prevention more on the community based level that a normal person can do is put the number of the NHTRC, the National Human Trafficking hotline in your phone. You put it in your cell phone and you read a little bit on the Web site about, ‘What are some of [slavery's] red flags? Where is this person from? … Do they have any control of their money? … What are these possible elements that make it a possibly suspicious situation.’ And if it feels like it could be suspicious, you call the hotline and they will check in and see if it’s possibly suspicious.”

Alexis Weiss - Anne Templeton Zimmerman Fellow

“I would recommend, one: they can go to the Free the Slaves Web site where they can join our listserv, and there’s monthly updates and things that they can do. For example, this petition is really important and critical right now. Having policy leaders and policymakers behind us and willing to do something about it is really critical for the movement.”