Victims break chains of slavery
By Brian Byrnes, CNN
Buenos Aires - Maria Velasquez was in need of work. She had no prospects in her hometown of La Paz, Bolivia, so when she was offered a bus ticket to Argentina and assured of steady work and a home there, she jumped at the chance.
It was a trip that would take her to the depths of the garment industry's slave labor trade only to emerge as a member of a cooperative credited with raising awareness about slave labor on two continents.
"I was promised a sewing job in Argentina that would pay a dignified salary of $200 a month. But just like so many other victims, I was lied to," says Velasquez, 31.
She quickly became a victim trapped inside a vast network of workers who are lured from Bolivia to Argentina on empty promises. FULL POST
Is your rug slave-free?
Goodweave USA is trying to put a stop to child slave labor practices in Asian rug factories, as CNN's Maggie Lake reports.
An iReporter's short film on slavery
CNN's Kristie Lu Stout highlights iReporter Renee Hong's short film on human trafficking.
How did the video come about? Hong, a graphic designer, says she was part of a program called YWAM which stands for Youth With a Mission. Her six-month training in Germany focused on art and social injustice. "And so one of the graphic design assignments was to create a stop-motion video that somehow got awareness to the topic of human trafficking," she said.
As she says in her iReport submission, "It is a video that brings awareness to human trafficking in all of its forms: labor, prostitution and child soldiers."
Want to take the iReport challenge? Learn more about how you can make a difference and check out past iReport highlights
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