For Ohio University senior Christina Conrad, all it took was seeing the Lifetime movie Human Trafficking to want to help put an end to the buying and selling of people all over the world.
I was so appalled that this was happening to these girls and women
said Conrad, who is studying social work. I would be lying in my bed or changing to get in the shower and I would think about how horrible it would be to have somebody do whatever they wanted to my body and not have any privacy. It was honestly keeping me up at night.
Conrad's concerns about human trafficking led her to create a new student group, with the help of service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega, called Belts Breaking Bondage. The group makes and sells colorful waist belts for $6 to $10, and donates 85 percent of the proceeds to different organizations opposed to human trafficking each month.
This month, the belt sale proceeds will go to Transitions Global, an organization that works in Cambodia to help trafficked girls get education and job training. Conrad plans on letting group members vote each month on different organizations that she
has researched.
Anna Schottenstein, an Alpha Phi Omega member, said Belts Breaking Bondage is a good cause for the fraternity because of the large number of women in the organization and the large presence the group holds on campus.
It's very important to me that women and people all over the world are treated with respect and equal human rights because it's not fair for them to be treated the way they are said Schottenstein, a sophomore studying social studies education.
Leigha Kristoff, another Alpha Phi Omega member who works closely with Belts Breaking Bondage, said that students should know that trafficking occurs in the United States as much as foreign countries, with Toledo being named one of the top recruiting cities for underage prostitution in the country two years in a row by the FBI.
People don't think about it. When they hear the word 'slavery
' they think about the Civil War and the early days of America. They don't think that slavery still exists today
Kristoff said.
Belts will be sold this Friday on College Green and then every Wednesday in Baker University Center and every Friday on College Green during Spring Quarter.
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Culture
Mallory Long
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Lisa Rome, Amanda Lockhart and group founder Christina Conrad pose in belts from the fundraiser group Belts Breaking Bondage. Eighty-five percent of the proceeds from the sales of these belts go to different anti-human trafficking organizations.
