OSHKOSH, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A bracelet sold on Saturday, helps a human trafficking victim later.
It’s why Terra Koslowski tells FOX 11 she helped organize a Fair Trade Festival at New City Church in Oshkosh.
“Working with women who are coming out of trafficking, it’s a long process to help them recover. And one of the most difficult things for them is just figuring out how to start their life over.”
Koslowski has worked with victims for years. She says fair trade businesses go further than making a donation.
“That give women jobs so that they can make jewelry, accessories, bags so that they can have a job and can feel part of a dignity business is what we call it.”
While some of the earrings, bags, and apparel could be found in Oshkosh, organizers say the impact will be felt globally. That’s because some of the funds raised here today will fund an orphanage in Haiti.
“We sell items made by women who were victims of human trafficking or women who were at risk of being trafficked because they live in an impoverished area.”
Those impoverished areas include more than parts of the U.S.
“Walking through the tent cities and the slums of Haiti you just see these beautiful children, and I do mean children like six, seven-year-olds, aimlessly walking around,” described Dawn Frank. “They don’t have shelter they don’t have the care providers.”
Frank was a vendor at the Fair Trade Festival. She tells FOX she’s visited Haiti several times on mission trips and says human trafficking is a complex issue.
“What happens with poverty and human trafficking is that there is such a huge level of vulnerability that goes along with poverty.”
She adds fair trade businesses are meant to reduce that vulnerability.
That’s why Frank wants people at home to help by showing their support by buying from other fair trade businesses.
“It takes a lot of water to fill up an ocean. And so for me personally this is the one drop that I can add to that water. And if we’re all adding one drop, it’s an ocean!”
According to the FBI, human trafficking is believed to be the 3rd largest criminal activity in the world.
