One evening in fall 2001, Katherine Chon '02 and Derek Ellerman '02 were discussing slavery and the 19th-century abolitionist movement when their conversation turned to the subject of human trafficking. Neither knew much about the issue and decided to research the problem online. Their search turned up a 1998 Providence Journal article that recounted a police raid on a Providence brothel that had been operating under the guise of a health club. The story reported that six South Korean women had been trafficked into Providence, held captive and forced to have sex with health club customers. One woman had cigarette burns on her arms. All six were charged with prostitution and deported.
"One of the police officers even called it slavery," Ellerman said, "but there was no real response in the community. It shocked us that sexual trafficking was happening so close to home and that there was no community awareness that this is such a serious human rights abuse."
Ellerman said he was particularly drawn to the issue because several of his female friends are survivors of sexual assault and abuse. With further research, he and Chon learned that human trafficking and various forms of forced labor persist, in spite of U.S. and international laws against them. The U.S. Department of State estimates that between 600,000 and 800,000 people, mostly women and girls, are trafficked in the world each year and held as laborers or sex workers. About 15,000 of these are brought into the United States.
Chon and Ellerman said they saw a clear need for an organization that took a comprehensive approach to the issue of human trafficking and modern-day slavery - one that fought for improved conditions on the ground as well as systemic change through policy reform.
In a matter of months, Chon and Ellerman had crafted a business plan for the non-profit Polaris Project. They entered their model in the Brown Entrepreneurship Program annual business plan competition and received the second prize of $12,500. The day after their 2002 graduation, the two loaded a U-Haul truck, moved to Washington, D.C. and began working.
Since then, Polaris Project has grown into one of the largest non-profit anti-trafficking organizations in the country. It has established a satellite office in Tokyo, as well as grassroots chapters in Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle and Denver. Chon and Ellerman have assembled a paid staff of nine, along with a legion of volunteers. About 120 "leadership fellows" have received training from the project, learning how to aid victims and raise public awareness.
One of the primary successes Chon and Ellerman cite is their outreach work, which provides victims with crisis management, clothing, shelter and access to legal and health care.
"We felt like D.C. was a great place to do systemic work, but I don't think we knew the extent to which we would become a service organization," Ellerman said. "Really, we're the only type of group that's doing this kind of outreach in the D.C. area."
Chon considers Polaris' greatest success to be victim identification and assistance.
"Having served over 60 victims of trafficking in the last year or two is a major step forward," Chon said. "If Polaris didn't exist, those victims would never have been identified or served, and they'd still most likely be in their situations of trafficking."
Ellerman said the establishment of a strong D.C.-based task force has also been instrumental in reducing domestic sexual trafficking, one of the most prevalent forms of trafficking in the city. He described the abuses suffered by victims as young as 12 or 13, citing cases in which children were beaten with jumper cables and wire hangers, often until their bones were broken. But now, due to coordination among several non-governmental organizations, there are "regular pimp prosecutions" and "seamless" referral processes, Ellerman said.
In addition to its on-the-ground approach, Polaris also takes what Ellerman calls a "top-down strategy." Polaris advocates for legal reforms to achieve systemic and structural change. Polaris staff members help states draft anti-trafficking legislation and have testified before Congress, pushing for stronger laws at the federal level.
On Jan. 10, Congress unanimously adopted the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005, which Ellerman thinks "will change things more for domestic sex trafficking than any other policy in the West."
Chon said there has been a dramatic increase in the level of awareness about human trafficking in the last four years. This is due in large part to Polaris' movement-building efforts, she said. Polaris' 120 fellows have played a fundamental role in these efforts, Ellerman said, calling them "the heart of a lot of our operations."
"We identify rising young leaders and activists in the trafficking movement," Ellerman said. "They do so much of the work, and keep us constantly idealistic, young, passionate and fresh. Mentoring a lot of these young activists and helping them realize the potential they have to impact change is really wonderful and fulfilling."
Four years ago, Ellerman and Chon said they benefited from the advice of their own mentor, Adjunct Lecturer in Engineering Josef Mittlemann '72 P'00 P'04. When Ellerman and Chon decided they wanted to enter the business plan competition, Mittlemann helped them construct a business model. Mittlemann now sits on the Polaris Project board.
"I very much believed in what they were doing," Mittlemann said. "They had enthusiasm, great knowledge of the field and were addressing a need that was not being addressed. I just helped them create a framework in which they could work with their ideas and realize them."
Chon and Ellerman expressed excitement about Polaris' future. Ellerman said there are plans to extend the project's geographic reach in the United States and other countries. Polaris' next public-awareness campaign will focus on the role of multinational corporations in facilitating human trafficking as well as the role consumers play in purchasing goods produced under conditions of slave labor. Chon said this campaign is still in its development stages, but, like most of Polaris' work, will include an on-the-ground approach in addition to policy reform.
In the growth of the anti-trafficking movement, both Chon and Ellerman said they hope Polaris can serve as an example of successful entrepreneurship among young people. Mittlemann agreed.
"What they've done is a great example of social entrepreneurship that has meaningful ramifications for the world," he said. "This is their idea. They're making it happen."
