The Power of One

By now, you’ve probably all heard of Molly Katchpole.  If not, she is the 22-year-old woman from Washington, D.C. – originally from Cumberland, Rhode Island – who took on Bank of America.  As the story goes, she sent a letter of protest to B of A’s president when the bank announced it would begin to charge a $5-per-month fee for a debit card.  Molly called the fee “despicable.”  Meanwhile, many other banks, of course, had followed in B of A’s footsteps, announcing their own debit card fees.

And then Molly went a step further.  She went to www.change.org and launched an online petition which, at the time of this writing, has more than 306,000 signatures.  And she won – not just for herself, but for all consumers.  Bank of America, despite earlier comments to the contrary, agreed to retract the fee for all customers.  Competitor banks have now done the same.  Molly’s actions played a major role in banks’ decisions to revoke their fees.  She took on a giant institution; managed to create intense pressure; and demonstrated in no uncertain terms that each of us has a voice that can be used to effect great change, despite the seeming odds.

photo courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net

 How can you use your voice — your power?

 As Martin Luther King said in 1963: “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.  He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”   Speaking – and acting – on behalf of human trafficking victims is one way to use your voice.  Victims of human trafficking need your voices because, for the time being,  theirs have been silenced.

The Polaris Project — www.polarisproject.org — states that the average age of entry into the sex trafficking industry in the U.S. is between 12 and 14 years old.  And an FBI investigator recently commented that young girls have a life expectancy of just seven years after being forced into prostitution, due to drugs, STDs or violent pimps.

Won’t you speak out for them?  Won’t you act on their behalf?

Please help to raise awareness about human trafficking – and let us know if you need assistance in how to do this.  And, if you suspect that someone may be a victim, please contact the National Human Trafficking Resource Center at 1-888-373-7888.  Someone there will assist you in determining if you have encountered a victim and, if so, what the next steps should be.  If it’s an emergency situation, you should, of course, contact your local police. Perhaps one day, when sufficient numbers of people have said “enough,” this atrocity will come to an end.  Each of us can be a powerful force for change.  And when we join together, we can have tremendous impact.

     And if you don’t believe me, just ask Molly Katchpole.

Tags: forced prostitution, human trafficking, polaris project, sex slavery, slavery, stop human tarfficking