Social World Podcast: Slave-free trade

Brian is an Australian/Swedish counter-slavery campaigner. He is a former soldier (6 years) and Federal Agent (13 years) who, for the last almost 20 years has specialised in counter-slavery operations around the world. While posted abroad as a Federal Agent in China, he started seeing human trafficking cases, and switched priorities to counter-slavery work. He started slave free trade www.slavefreetrade.org in 2018 to shake up a number of things about the way we tackle modern slavery.

Tens of millions of children, globally, are victims of slavery. We talk of the mammoth task to protect the vulnerable and try to afford some children the childhood they deserve. We talk of the need for much more coordinated action and coming together of all statutory and not for profit groups to maximise awareness, resources and legislation to this widespread abomination.

The Freedomer App

"We are building the Freedomer App to be a community platform for like-minded consumers to get together and use their combined voice to demand better working conditions for the world’s most vulnerable. If you want your favourite things to be made without modern slavery, this is the way to voice it. As a Freedomer, you can use the App to petition your favourite brands for more transparency about manufacturing facilities ref slave free trade, mount campaigns, gather support for your campaign, even host chats with other people & experts and help usher in an end to modern slavery. You can build momentum with other Freedomers joining you within the app as well as through social media. Engage in dialogue with like-minded consumers and industry experts to keep track of how companies are performing on social sustainability metrics as they listen to their workers."

In order to create the App they are running a crowdfund. www.wemakeit.com

With their volunteer developerss, we estimate 6-8 months of development. If we are able to accelerate that either by the crowdfund to buy full-time dev hours, or by more volunteer commitments, we want to see that time reduced dramatically and get it into people’s hands faster.

We have designed the App screens as of now and are currently optimising the App user flow.

Phase 2 of the Freedomer App will include the ability to scan objects to determine its Made In Freedom rating, creating a marketplace of slavefree products and services so you know you are making the right choice.