Speak Up directly intervenes with practical legal help in situations of exploitation and injustice against the poor.
THE SITUATION
Slavery: Hundreds of thousands of women and girls around the world are trapped in brothels and bars and other parts of the global sex industry. Often victims of human trafficking, these women are physically, financially and psychologically coerced into remaining in forced prostitution. Many of the world’s poor are also illegally held as bonded laborers or trafficked into other forms of coerced labor in agriculture, the fishing industry, forced begging, and domestic work. These 21st century slaves have very little chance of being able to leave their captors.
Refugees: Millions of the world’s poor are vulnerable to terrible exploitation and abuse because they are refugees or internally displaced in their own country. Many such refugees need legal intervention to help them navigate the international legal system and to secure basic services. They need help finding a place to call home.
Illegal Detention: The world’s jails and prisons are teeming with people being illegally held, many of them poor and without a voice. Some of these victims are factually innocent people being held due to police or political corruption; others are jailed simply to extort them of their meager resources; and others are simply lost in a system that is denying them the right to representation or speedy access to the court system.
Land Seizures: Many of the world’s poor are victimized by land developers, corrupt officials and even greedy family members who want to steal their land and property. These situations range from southeast Asian migrant populations living on beachfront property desireable to land developers, to African widows whose homes are often seized by their deceased husband’s family, to Indian slum dwellers whose meager homes are simply burnt down by the authorities.
OUR RESPONSE
Speak Up is building the capacity to provide practical legal help for victims of these and other injustices against the poor. In Bangkok, Thailand, our first international office, we currently provide legal advocacy for refugees; partner with the police and local NGO’s to investigate cases of human trafficking and help to repatriate victims; and work with several NGO’s and Thai lawyers to speak up for an ethnic minority whose land is being stolen by unscrupulous landlords and developers.
We aim to provide excellent legal advocacy that ensures that each of these functions are performed as needed:
(1) Investigation and documentation of abuses.
(2) Practical relief for the poor and protection or removal from abusive situations.
(3) Prosecution of criminal offenders.
(4) Appropriate aftercare for victims, include rehabilition, repatriation, or resettlement.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
(1) Learn more about the issues so that you can be a part of building an international community that will not allow the systemic exploitation of the poor.
(2) Join us as a financial partner to help us speak up for the poor.
(3) Come join us as a visitor, volunteer or employee to directly help us speak up.