Freedom Network, national leader in fight against modern-day slavery, makes its voice heard in Wendy’s Month of Outrage!

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Shandra Woworuntu (center, speaking) talks with a Chicago-area Wendy’s manager as part of the delegation of Freedom Network members who took time out of their annual conference earlier this week to support of the Wendy’s boycott.  Ms. Woworuntu, originally from Indonesia, is herself a survivor of a modern-day slavery, serves on the recently formed White House Council of Survivors, and is a founder of Mentari, a New York-based NGO dedicated to empowering survivors of human trafficking.

Nearly 50 Freedom Network members march on Wendy’s in Chicago…

The Freedom Network USA to Empower Trafficked and Enslaved Persons is the oldest national network/alliance of organizations dedicated to fighting and eliminating human trafficking and modern-day slavery.  The CIW was a founding member of the network, which formed in 2001 and today counts 39 organizations in dozens of states, from the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund in New York City, to the Southern Poverty Immigrant Justice Project in Atlanta and the Coalition Against Slavery and Trafficking in Los Angeles.  The past three recipients of the Presidential Award for Extraordinary Efforts in Combatting Human Trafficking have been Freedom Network members. 

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The Freedom Network held its 14th annual conference in Chicago earlier this week, and as usual, attendance and interest were high.  Hundreds of social service personnel, law enforcement agents, trafficking survivors, government prosecutors, attorneys, and worker organizers came from across the nation, as well as from countries like Taiwan and Nepal.  They worked together on topics ranging from forced labor in agriculture to domestic violence investigation and prevention, how to organize effective task forces that bring together law enforcement with NGOs, and the rise of slavery under extremism and fundamentalism overseas.  The new State Department Ambassador from the Office of Trafficking in Persons, Ambassador Susan Coppedge, was the keynote speaker.  

One topic that wasn’t on the extensive conference agenda, however, was the Wendy’s boycott.  But — given a) Wendy’s refusal to participate in the leading human rights program combatting modern-day slavery in agriculture today, b) the company’s decision to move its purchases to Mexico, where human rights violations including forced labor are endemic and go largely unchecked, and c) Wendy’s association with a major grower in Mexico where the Mexican army helped free nearly 300 people from forced labor conditions in 2013 — that oversight would not be allowed to stand for long at a gathering of so many experienced, dedicated anti-slavery activists!  

And, indeed, on the conference’s second day, CIW representatives and nearly 50 other like-minded conference participants organized a march from the hotel where the conference was being held to a local Wendy’s in downtown Chicago this past Monday to demonstrate their support for workers in Wendy’s supply chain and for the CIW’s boycott of the fast-food giant.  And, best of all, they shared some pictures with us to document their experience.

Here below, CIW representatives Julia Perkins (left), Raymond Perkins (mother’s arms), and Agatha Schmaedick (middle) lead the delegation out of the hotel on their way to a local Wendy’s restaurant:

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The delegation makes it way through Chicago streets to the local Wendy’s restaurant:

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And, finally, below, an understanding Wendy’s manager agrees to share the manager’s letter with corporate representatives:

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The delegation was an excellent example of the kind of creative actions taking place across the country as as part of April’s Month of Outrage kicking off the Wendy’s boycott.  Already reports are reaching Immokalee of protests, op/eds in local and campus papers, and more — reports that we will be sharing with you as the month progresses.  

So if you are organizing a local action as part of the Month of Outrage, be sure to send us your photos and a brief report, and, as was the case for the dedicated activists at this week’s Freedom Network conference, your story might just be retold on these pages and inspire countless more actions around the Fair Food Nation!