Join us for a webinar with
Joanna Ewart-James
Executive Director, Freedom United
Herrana Addisu
Advocacy Officer, Freedom United
It’s hard to deny that the effects of coronavirus or COVID-19 are wide-reaching, as drastic attempts to reduce its impact become ever more widespread. But what about the impact on modern slavery?
As coronavirus spreads across the globe, businesses, and employers are closing their doors to stay home. This is having a drastic impact on workers with soaring unemployment rates in some industries, and spikes in demand for labor that cannot be easily met in others.
Low-paid migrant workers in cities around the world have been attempting to return to family homes with few transportation options, leaving them extremely vulnerable to exploitation. Domestic workers are being asked to isolate with their employers or leave their jobs as families fear the spread of the virus.
While governments across the globe are passing new policies to contain the pandemic, regulations on human trafficking and modern slavery are being forgotten.
Join us on Thursday, April 23, from 12:00 noon – 1:00pm EST, for a discussion of this pressing topic with Joanna Ewart-James, Executive Director of UNA-NYC partner organization Freedom United, the largest anti-slavery movement in the world, along with Herrana Addisu, the organization's Advocacy Officer in New York.
Guest Speakers
JOANNA EWART-JAMES
Joanna Ewart-James leads and supports the staff at Freedom United, guiding and mobilising our community members to power up the global anti-slavery effort and drive real change.
Joanna is also Chair of the board of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, a trustee at Labour Behind the Label Trust, where she campaigns for workers’ rights in the clothing industry, and sits on the Modern Slavery Registry Advisory Committee. She was previously with Anti-Slavery International, where she developed and directed their work on business engagement.
Joanna is a contributing author to books, including: Vulnerability, Exploitation and Migrants: Insecure Work in a Globalised Economy (Palgrave, 2015), and The SAGE Handbook of Human Trafficking and Modern Day Slavery (SAGE, 2018).
Her international human rights experience spans the UK diplomatic service, academia, and philanthropy, managing multi-million dollar budgets.
Joanna holds a Masters in Understanding and Securing Human Rights from the University of London.
HERRANA ADDISU
Herrana Addisu is the New York-based Advocacy Officer for Freedom United. She supports their U.S. and international campaigns to combat forced labor and modern-day slavery. She is currently leading Freedom United’s ILO Forced Labor Protocol campaign, calling on all UN member states to ratify.
Before joining Freedom United, Herrana worked as Program Assistant for the Institute for Women’s Leadership and a Research and Policy Fellow for the NGO Working on Women, Peace, and Security.
Prior to that, she aided the Permanent Mission of Costa Rica to the United Nations, where she conducted research on peacekeeping, security, and gender, and monitored meetings for the First and Fourth Committees.
As an undergraduate, Herrana has interned with Amnesty International USA and Hyacinth AIDS Foundation. She acquired a Master’s Degree in United Nations and Global Policy with a concentration in International Law, Human Rights, and Gender Equality, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and Women and Gender Studies from Rutgers University.
She found her passion for labor rights when she studied for a semester abroad in a graduate school at the University of Kassel (Germany) with the International Center for Development and Decent Work. She conducted research on business and human rights.
As an Ethiopian native, Herrana speaks fluent Amharic and English.