The A21 Campaign is a non-profit organization aiming to "abolish slavery everywhere, forever" through fighting human trafficking by education/awareness, rescuing victims, and prosecuting traffickers.
A21's current campaign "Can You See Me?" features videos and text resources on how to identify victims of human trafficking. This campaign was created to "equip the general public to recognize indicators of human trafficking, and report suspected scenarios." The "Can You See Me?" video series features multiple stories of individuals being exploited in scenarios such as child trafficking, labor trafficking, domestic servitude, forced labor, and sex trafficking. The personal stories in these videos are fictional, but still expose factual experiences of people all across the globe. The video I chose to analyze features a young Filipino woman who was brought to the U.S. as a domestic servant. The brief one-minute video tells the story of this woman who was brought to America in hopes of financial stability and a bright future as a housekeeper but was met with controlling and abusive traffickers. As the woman is verbally abused while washing dishes, a visiting handyman looks on with concern. This video uses a "show don't tell" method. Instead of using a spokesperson or sharing statistics about human trafficking, this campaign creates realistic personal narratives to illustrate how individuals get involved in trafficking, the types of abuse they endure, and how outside individuals can intervene.
In this story, there are three main subjects: the young woman, her traffickers, and the handyman. The young woman in focus does not speak at all. This is an intentional choice, which further illustrates that these victims often are not able to speak up about their situation. These victims need individuals, such as the handyman in this video, to recognize the abuse and use their voices to get them help. I believe that this campaign portrays the young woman as a victim and as passive. The video chose to portray her in this way to show that these individuals are often unable to do anything to change their situation. On the opposite end, this video portrays the traffickers as active villains who know exactly what they are doing. They falsely lure her to America with promises of prosperity, but then meet her with abuse and loss of individuality upon her arrival. Lastly, this video features an outside individual, the handyman, who witnesses the abuse. The story does not present him in any way other than that he seems concerned about what is going on. This is intentional and the critical piece to turn this advocacy into action. This handyman portrays the message that it is up to individuals to decide how they will act when they witness trafficking. He has the option to ignore the abuse or recognize the individual being harmed and take action. The objective of "Can You See Me?" is to equip individuals to recognize and intervene in these situations instead of turning a blind eye. The handyman represents all of us, the general public, and how we can get involved in real, tangible ways to end modern day slavery.
This video successfully highlights three of the key foundational values: Care/Harm, Liberty/Oppression, and Loyalty/Betrayal. This campaign chose to heavily highlight the negative words associated with these values (Harm, Oppression, and Betrayal) to illustrate the dire situations that the victims are experiencing. The video clearly shows the harm and oppression that the young woman experiences daily from her traffickers as well as the betrayal she faced by being manipulated into abuse. These values were appropriate to use in order to portray A21’s message. However, in a subsequent campaign, A21 can use the positive values, Care, Liberty, and Loyalty, to show how these victims can be freed and get help.
The video ends with a call to action, “if you suspect it, report it” with resources such as the U.S. Human Trafficking Hotline and A21’s website. This simple call to action illustrates how easy it is for anyone to report a situation. The call to action requires little resources and low entry to participation. There is no requirement for heroic actions or financial giving to make a huge impact for specific situations and the issue of human trafficking at large. This campaign fits in with A21’s overall goals and objectives. In order for the organization to help stop human trafficking, they need local partners from all across the globe to alert them of the situations going on in their personal communities. Intervention and termination of human trafficking in individual stories and as a whole can only occur through the help of bold individuals that are willing to say, “I can see you.” This campaign successfully uses realistic personal examples to portray A21’s objectives and inspire individuals to be alert to signs of trafficking.
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