UPDATE 1/12/10: To check out yesterday’s hour-long BBC program live from Immokalee on modern-day slavery, click here!

“Immokalee slavery topic of the day on global radio,” (Ft. Myers News Press)

BBC’s “World Have Your Say” to broadcast live from Immokalee, 1:00 pm (EST), and online at Public Radio’s WGCU or BBC Radio

On the heels of President Obama’s proclamation designating January “National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month,” the BBC program with a global audience, “World Have Your Say,” is coming to Immokalee to cast its own considerable light on modern-day slavery. Here’s a one-minute video preview of today’s show from Ros Atkins, the host of “World Have Your Say”:

And from the Ft. Myers News-Press:

“… Each week, the audience-driven show ‘World Have Your Say’ reaches about 170 million listeners who have a global conversation with calls, e-mails, text messages and blogs. The BBC has partnered with public radio station WGCU-FM, which is doing a monthlong multimedia series: ‘Immokalee: The Challenge. The Hope.’In recent years, Immokalee has been in the media spotlight not for being a historic farming-town-turned-gaming hot-spot, but for being branded ground zero for modern-day slavery by federal officials including U.S. attorney Douglas Molloy, who will be one of the show’s guests.Since 1997, seven agricultural slavery operations involving more than 1,000 workers have been federally prosecuted in Florida.Last January, members of the Navarrete family were sentenced in what Molloy called one of the region’s ‘biggest, ugliest slavery cases ever.’ After luring Mexican and Guatemalan men with promises of work, the family took their papers, gave them fake IDs and held them in servitude — locking them in trucks at night, where they had to urinate and defecate in corners and tying — chaining or beating them if they tried to leave. The Navarretes didn’t pay their captives for their work harvesting tomatoes on Immokalee farms, including two owned by some of the state’s biggest growers: Six Ls and Pacific. ‘I think the audience will find it incredible that this happens in America,’ said Heba Ayoub, the show’s producer. ‘And I think it will resonate with a lot of people all over the world.’

For now, we’ll give the CIW’s Laura Germino the last word on today’s radio program. You’ll have to tune in today at 1:00 if you want to hear more:

“… Coalition of Immokalee Workers member Laura Germino, who’ll also be a guest, agrees. The coalition is an advocacy group.’Consumers from Dubai to Paris to Buenos Aires will learn workers are held in forced labor in U.S. fields (and) that in the 21st century, slavery remains woven into the fabric of consumers’ daily lives. The tomatoes in their sandwiches, for example, may have been picked by people in involuntary servitude — captive workers held against their will through threats or violence.’Germino also welcomes the chance to tell listeners how they can help.’We’ve found consumers from all walks of life have something in common: revulsion against slavery and no interest in being part of that crime,’ she said.”

See you on the radio!