1 00:00:00,723 --> 00:00:07,123 I'm 150 feet down an illegal mine shaft in Ghana. 2 00:00:07,123 --> 00:00:11,244 The air is thick with heat and dust, 3 00:00:11,244 --> 00:00:14,653 and it's hard to breathe. 4 00:00:14,653 --> 00:00:17,915 I can feel the brush of sweaty bodies passing me 5 00:00:17,915 --> 00:00:22,161 in the darkness, but I can't see much else. 6 00:00:22,161 --> 00:00:26,131 I hear voices talking, but mostly the shaft 7 00:00:26,131 --> 00:00:30,119 is this cacophony of men coughing, 8 00:00:30,119 --> 00:00:34,030 and stone being broken with primitive tools. 9 00:00:34,030 --> 00:00:38,085 Like the others, I wear a flickering, cheap flashlight 10 00:00:38,085 --> 00:00:42,881 tied to my head with this elastic, tattered band, 11 00:00:42,881 --> 00:00:46,221 and I can barely make out the slick tree limbs 12 00:00:46,221 --> 00:00:49,250 holding up the walls of the three-foot square hole 13 00:00:49,250 --> 00:00:53,876 dropping hundreds of feet into the earth. 14 00:00:53,876 --> 00:00:56,956 When my hand slips, I suddenly remember a miner 15 00:00:56,956 --> 00:01:01,237 I had met days before who had lost his grip 16 00:01:01,237 --> 00:01:05,858 and fell countless feet down that shaft. 17 00:01:05,858 --> 00:01:08,389 As I stand talking to you today, 18 00:01:08,389 --> 00:01:11,893 these men are still deep in that hole, 19 00:01:11,893 --> 00:01:15,408 risking their lives without payment or compensation, 20 00:01:15,408 --> 00:01:18,548 and often dying. 21 00:01:18,548 --> 00:01:23,736 I got to climb out of that hole, and I got to go home, 22 00:01:23,736 --> 00:01:29,918 but they likely never will, because they're trapped in slavery. 23 00:01:29,918 --> 00:01:32,825 For the last 28 years, I've been documenting 24 00:01:32,825 --> 00:01:35,386 indigenous cultures in more than 70 countries 25 00:01:35,386 --> 00:01:39,181 on six continents, and in 2009 I had the great honor 26 00:01:39,181 --> 00:01:43,593 of being the sole exhibitor at the Vancouver Peace Summit. 27 00:01:43,593 --> 00:01:47,165 Amongst all the astonishing people I met there, 28 00:01:47,165 --> 00:01:50,335 I met a supporter of Free the Slaves, an NGO 29 00:01:50,335 --> 00:01:55,662 dedicated to eradicating modern day slavery. 30 00:01:55,662 --> 00:01:58,551 We started talking about slavery, and really, 31 00:01:58,551 --> 00:02:01,415 I started learning about slavery, 32 00:02:01,415 --> 00:02:04,624 for I had certainly known it existed in the world, 33 00:02:04,624 --> 00:02:07,635 but not to such a degree. 34 00:02:07,635 --> 00:02:11,378 After we finished talking, I felt so horrible 35 00:02:11,378 --> 00:02:14,754 and honestly ashamed at my own lack of knowledge 36 00:02:14,754 --> 00:02:18,264 of this atrocity in my own lifetime, and I thought, 37 00:02:18,264 --> 00:02:23,132 if I don't know, how many other people don't know? 38 00:02:23,132 --> 00:02:26,947 It started burning a hole in my stomach, so within weeks, 39 00:02:26,947 --> 00:02:29,923 I flew down to Los Angeles to meet with the director 40 00:02:29,923 --> 00:02:33,194 of Free the Slaves and offer them my help. 41 00:02:33,194 --> 00:02:37,764 Thus began my journey into modern day slavery. 42 00:02:37,764 --> 00:02:40,906 Oddly, I had been to many of these places before. 43 00:02:40,906 --> 00:02:44,387 Some I even considered like my second home. 44 00:02:44,387 --> 00:02:51,822 But this time, I would see the skeletons hidden in the closet. 45 00:02:51,822 --> 00:02:54,127 A conservative estimate tells us there are more than 46 00:02:54,127 --> 00:02:58,282 27 million people enslaved in the world today. 47 00:02:58,282 --> 00:03:01,762 That's double the amount of people taken from Africa 48 00:03:01,762 --> 00:03:05,887 during the entire trans-Atlantic slave trade. 49 00:03:05,887 --> 00:03:09,031 A hundred and fifty years ago, an agricultural slave 50 00:03:09,031 --> 00:03:12,525 cost about three times the annual salary 51 00:03:12,525 --> 00:03:15,271 of an American worker. 52 00:03:15,271 --> 00:03:19,264 That equates to about $50,000 in today's money. 53 00:03:19,264 --> 00:03:23,656 Yet today, entire families can be enslaved for generations 54 00:03:23,656 --> 00:03:28,524 over a debt as small as $18. 55 00:03:28,524 --> 00:03:31,556 Astonishingly, slavery generates profits 56 00:03:31,556 --> 00:03:37,302 of more than $13 billion worldwide each year. 57 00:03:37,302 --> 00:03:40,154 Many have been tricked by false promises 58 00:03:40,154 --> 00:03:44,700 of a good education, a better job, only to find 59 00:03:44,700 --> 00:03:48,208 that they're forced to work without pay 60 00:03:48,208 --> 00:03:53,876 under the threat of violence, and they cannot walk away. 61 00:03:53,876 --> 00:03:57,158 Today's slavery is about commerce, 62 00:03:57,158 --> 00:04:01,188 so the goods that enslaved people produce have value, 63 00:04:01,188 --> 00:04:06,186 but the people producing them are disposable. 64 00:04:06,186 --> 00:04:10,576 Slavery exists everywhere, nearly, in the world, 65 00:04:10,576 --> 00:04:17,543 and yet it is illegal everywhere in the world. 66 00:04:17,543 --> 00:04:22,333 In India and Nepal, I was introduced to the brick kilns. 67 00:04:22,333 --> 00:04:25,124 This strange and awesome sight was like 68 00:04:25,124 --> 00:04:29,014 walking into ancient Egypt or Dante's Inferno. 69 00:04:29,014 --> 00:04:33,165 Enveloped in temperatures of 130 degrees, 70 00:04:33,165 --> 00:04:37,260 men, women, children, entire families in fact, 71 00:04:37,260 --> 00:04:40,411 were cloaked in a heavy blanket of dust, 72 00:04:40,411 --> 00:04:43,031 while mechanically stacking bricks on their head, 73 00:04:43,031 --> 00:04:46,152 up to 18 at a time, and carrying them 74 00:04:46,152 --> 00:04:51,102 from the scorching kilns to trucks hundreds of yards away. 75 00:04:51,102 --> 00:04:54,629 Deadened by monotony and exhaustion, 76 00:04:54,629 --> 00:05:00,214 they work silently, doing this task over and over 77 00:05:00,214 --> 00:05:03,567 for 16 or 17 hours a day. 78 00:05:03,567 --> 00:05:07,286 There were no breaks for food, no water breaks, 79 00:05:07,286 --> 00:05:09,838 and the severe dehydration made urinating 80 00:05:09,838 --> 00:05:12,710 pretty much inconsequential. 81 00:05:12,710 --> 00:05:15,142 So pervasive was the heat and the dust 82 00:05:15,142 --> 00:05:18,893 that my camera became too hot to even touch 83 00:05:18,893 --> 00:05:21,345 and ceased working. 84 00:05:21,345 --> 00:05:24,117 Every 20 minutes, I'd have to run back to our cruiser 85 00:05:24,117 --> 00:05:27,466 to clean out my gear and run it under an air conditioner 86 00:05:27,466 --> 00:05:30,521 to revive it, and as I sat there, 87 00:05:30,521 --> 00:05:35,131 I thought, my camera is getting far better treatment 88 00:05:35,131 --> 00:05:37,457 than these people. 89 00:05:37,457 --> 00:05:40,329 Back in the kilns, I wanted to cry, 90 00:05:40,329 --> 00:05:43,507 but the abolitionist next to me quickly grabbed me 91 00:05:43,507 --> 00:05:47,811 and he said, "Lisa, don't do that. Just don't do that here." 92 00:05:47,811 --> 00:05:51,704 And he very clearly explained to me that emotional displays 93 00:05:51,704 --> 00:05:54,238 are very dangerous in a place like this, 94 00:05:54,238 --> 00:05:58,092 not just for me, but for them. 95 00:05:58,092 --> 00:06:01,742 I couldn't offer them any direct help. 96 00:06:01,742 --> 00:06:04,535 I couldn't give them money, nothing. 97 00:06:04,535 --> 00:06:06,332 I wasn't a citizen of that country. 98 00:06:06,332 --> 00:06:09,420 I could get them in a worse situation 99 00:06:09,420 --> 00:06:12,200 than they were already in. 100 00:06:12,200 --> 00:06:14,456 I'd have to rely on Free the Slaves to work 101 00:06:14,456 --> 00:06:17,298 within the system for their liberation, 102 00:06:17,298 --> 00:06:20,767 and I trusted that they would. 103 00:06:20,767 --> 00:06:24,204 As for me, I'd have to wait until I got home 104 00:06:24,204 --> 00:06:28,166 to really feel my heartbreak. 105 00:06:28,166 --> 00:06:31,039 In the Himalayas, I found children carrying stone 106 00:06:31,039 --> 00:06:33,789 for miles down mountainous terrain 107 00:06:33,789 --> 00:06:36,687 to trucks waiting at roads below. 108 00:06:36,687 --> 00:06:39,205 The big sheets of slate were heavier 109 00:06:39,205 --> 00:06:41,871 than the children carrying them, 110 00:06:41,871 --> 00:06:43,900 and the kids hoisted them from their heads 111 00:06:43,900 --> 00:06:48,344 using these handmade harnesses of sticks and rope 112 00:06:48,344 --> 00:06:50,191 and torn cloth. 113 00:06:50,191 --> 00:06:53,866 It's difficult to witness something so overwhelming. 114 00:06:53,866 --> 00:06:56,513 How can we affect something so insidious, 115 00:06:56,513 --> 00:06:59,725 yet so pervasive? 116 00:06:59,725 --> 00:07:02,437 Some don't even know they're enslaved, 117 00:07:02,437 --> 00:07:07,443 people working 16, 17 hours a day without any pay, 118 00:07:07,443 --> 00:07:10,656 because this has been the case all their lives. 119 00:07:10,656 --> 00:07:14,938 They have nothing to compare it to. 120 00:07:14,938 --> 00:07:18,312 When these villagers claimed their freedom, 121 00:07:18,312 --> 00:07:23,727 the slaveholders burned down all of their houses. 122 00:07:23,727 --> 00:07:25,689 I mean, these people had nothing, 123 00:07:25,689 --> 00:07:29,338 and they were so petrified, they wanted to give up, 124 00:07:29,338 --> 00:07:33,385 but the woman in the center rallied for them to persevere, 125 00:07:33,385 --> 00:07:34,881 and abolitionists on the ground 126 00:07:34,881 --> 00:07:37,540 helped them get a quarry lease of their own, 127 00:07:37,540 --> 00:07:40,653 so that now they do the same back-breaking work, 128 00:07:40,653 --> 00:07:45,160 but they do it for themselves, and they get paid for it, 129 00:07:45,160 --> 00:07:48,583 and they do it in freedom. 130 00:07:48,583 --> 00:07:50,651 Sex trafficking is what we often think of 131 00:07:50,651 --> 00:07:52,552 when we hear the word slavery, 132 00:07:52,552 --> 00:07:54,511 and because of this worldwide awareness, 133 00:07:54,511 --> 00:07:57,647 I was warned that it would be difficult for me to work safely 134 00:07:57,647 --> 00:08:00,469 within this particular industry. 135 00:08:00,469 --> 00:08:03,311 In Kathmandu, I was escorted by women who had 136 00:08:03,311 --> 00:08:06,847 previously been sex slaves themselves. 137 00:08:06,847 --> 00:08:09,205 They ushered me down a narrow set of stairs 138 00:08:09,205 --> 00:08:14,818 that led to this dirty, dimly fluorescent lit basement. 139 00:08:14,818 --> 00:08:16,650 This wasn't a brothel, per se. 140 00:08:16,650 --> 00:08:18,961 It was more like a restaurant. 141 00:08:18,961 --> 00:08:21,221 Cabin restaurants, as they're known in the trade, 142 00:08:21,221 --> 00:08:23,843 are venues for forced prostitution. 143 00:08:23,843 --> 00:08:26,875 Each has small, private rooms, where the slaves, 144 00:08:26,875 --> 00:08:29,506 women, along with young girls and boys, 145 00:08:29,506 --> 00:08:32,285 some as young as seven years old, 146 00:08:32,285 --> 00:08:34,275 are forced to entertain the clients, 147 00:08:34,275 --> 00:08:38,055 encouraging them to buy more food and alcohol. 148 00:08:38,055 --> 00:08:41,094 Each cubicle is dark and dingy, 149 00:08:41,094 --> 00:08:45,033 identified with a painted number on the wall, 150 00:08:45,033 --> 00:08:49,138 and partitioned by plywood and a curtain. 151 00:08:49,138 --> 00:08:52,689 The workers here often endure tragic sexual abuse 152 00:08:52,689 --> 00:08:55,271 at the hands of their customers. 153 00:08:55,271 --> 00:08:58,337 Standing in the near darkness, I remember feeling 154 00:08:58,337 --> 00:09:02,423 this quick, hot fear, and in that instant, 155 00:09:02,423 --> 00:09:04,768 I could only imagine what it must be like 156 00:09:04,768 --> 00:09:07,431 to be trapped in that hell. 157 00:09:07,431 --> 00:09:12,033 I had only one way out: the stairs from where I'd come in. 158 00:09:12,033 --> 00:09:13,889 There were no back doors. 159 00:09:13,889 --> 00:09:16,432 There were no windows large enough to climb through. 160 00:09:16,432 --> 00:09:20,692 These people have no escape at all, 161 00:09:20,692 --> 00:09:23,752 and as we take in such a difficult subject, 162 00:09:23,752 --> 00:09:28,363 it's important to note that slavery, including sex trafficking, 163 00:09:28,363 --> 00:09:31,292 occurs in our own backyard as well. 164 00:09:31,292 --> 00:09:35,916 Tens of hundreds of people are enslaved in agriculture, 165 00:09:35,916 --> 00:09:38,588 in restaurants, in domestic servitude, 166 00:09:38,588 --> 00:09:41,220 and the list can go on. 167 00:09:41,220 --> 00:09:43,859 Recently, the New York Times reported that 168 00:09:43,859 --> 00:09:49,665 between 100,000 and 300,000 American children 169 00:09:49,665 --> 00:09:53,626 are sold into sex slavery every year. 170 00:09:53,626 --> 00:10:00,169 It's all around us. We just don't see it. 171 00:10:00,169 --> 00:10:03,551 The textile industry is another one we often think of 172 00:10:03,551 --> 00:10:06,437 when we hear about slave labor. 173 00:10:06,437 --> 00:10:10,760 I visited villages in India where entire families were enslaved 174 00:10:10,760 --> 00:10:13,405 in the silk trade. 175 00:10:13,405 --> 00:10:15,697 This is a family portrait. 176 00:10:15,697 --> 00:10:19,585 The dyed black hands are the father, while the blue 177 00:10:19,585 --> 00:10:22,374 and red hands are his sons. 178 00:10:22,374 --> 00:10:25,098 They mix dye in these big barrels, 179 00:10:25,098 --> 00:10:29,063 and they submerge the silk into the liquid up to their elbows, 180 00:10:29,063 --> 00:10:34,025 but the dye is toxic. 181 00:10:34,025 --> 00:10:37,330 My interpreter told me their stories. 182 00:10:37,330 --> 00:10:40,932 "We have no freedom," they said. 183 00:10:40,932 --> 00:10:44,036 "We hope still, though, that we could leave this house 184 00:10:44,036 --> 00:10:45,690 someday and go someplace else 185 00:10:45,690 --> 00:10:52,354 where we actually get paid for our dyeing." 186 00:10:52,354 --> 00:10:57,293 It's estimated that more than 4,000 children 187 00:10:57,293 --> 00:10:59,450 are enslaved on Lake Volta, 188 00:10:59,450 --> 00:11:03,536 the largest man-made lake in the world. 189 00:11:03,536 --> 00:11:06,510 When we first arrived, I went to have a quick look. 190 00:11:06,510 --> 00:11:09,878 I saw what seemed to be a family fishing on a boat, 191 00:11:09,878 --> 00:11:14,043 two older brothers, some younger kids, makes sense right? 192 00:11:14,043 --> 00:11:18,091 Wrong. They were all enslaved. 193 00:11:18,091 --> 00:11:20,920 Children are taken from their families 194 00:11:20,920 --> 00:11:23,427 and trafficked and vanished, 195 00:11:23,427 --> 00:11:26,339 and they're forced to work endless hours on these boats 196 00:11:26,339 --> 00:11:30,886 on the lake, even though they do not know how to swim. 197 00:11:30,886 --> 00:11:33,221 This young child is eight years old. 198 00:11:33,221 --> 00:11:35,877 He was trembling when our boat approached, 199 00:11:35,877 --> 00:11:38,532 frightened it would run over his tiny canoe. 200 00:11:38,532 --> 00:11:41,871 He was petrified he would be knocked in the water. 201 00:11:41,871 --> 00:11:45,156 The skeletal tree limbs submerged in Lake Volta 202 00:11:45,156 --> 00:11:49,121 often catch the fishing nets, and weary, 203 00:11:49,121 --> 00:11:52,854 frightened children are thrown into the water 204 00:11:52,854 --> 00:11:55,005 to untether the lines. 205 00:11:55,005 --> 00:11:57,852 Many of them drown. 206 00:11:57,852 --> 00:12:01,192 For as long as he can recall, he's been forced to work 207 00:12:01,192 --> 00:12:03,365 on the lake. 208 00:12:03,365 --> 00:12:06,829 Terrified of his master, he will not run away, 209 00:12:06,829 --> 00:12:10,317 and since he's been treated with cruelty all his life, 210 00:12:10,317 --> 00:12:12,749 he passes that down to the younger slaves 211 00:12:12,749 --> 00:12:15,754 that he manages. 212 00:12:15,754 --> 00:12:17,858 I met these boys at five in the morning, 213 00:12:17,858 --> 00:12:20,319 when they were hauling in the last of their nets, 214 00:12:20,319 --> 00:12:23,180 but they had been working since 1 a.m. 215 00:12:23,180 --> 00:12:26,755 in the cold, windy night. 216 00:12:26,755 --> 00:12:30,021 And it's important to note that these nets weigh 217 00:12:30,021 --> 00:12:34,437 more than a thousand pounds when they're full of fish. 218 00:12:34,437 --> 00:12:38,940 I want to introduce you to Kofi. 219 00:12:38,940 --> 00:12:42,186 Kofi was rescued from a fishing village. 220 00:12:42,186 --> 00:12:44,778 I met him at a shelter where Free the Slaves 221 00:12:44,778 --> 00:12:48,707 rehabilitates victims of slavery. 222 00:12:48,707 --> 00:12:50,788 Here he's seen taking a bath at the well, 223 00:12:50,788 --> 00:12:53,691 pouring big buckets of water over his head, 224 00:12:53,691 --> 00:12:55,612 and the wonderful news is, 225 00:12:55,612 --> 00:12:57,610 as you and I are sitting here talking today, 226 00:12:57,610 --> 00:13:00,845 Kofi has been reunited with his family, 227 00:13:00,845 --> 00:13:03,997 and what's even better, his family has been given tools 228 00:13:03,997 --> 00:13:09,724 to make a living and to keep their children safe. 229 00:13:09,724 --> 00:13:14,177 Kofi is the embodiment of possibility. 230 00:13:14,177 --> 00:13:18,748 Who will he become because someone took a stand 231 00:13:18,748 --> 00:13:22,340 and made a difference in his life? 232 00:13:22,340 --> 00:13:24,568 Driving down a road in Ghana 233 00:13:24,568 --> 00:13:26,656 with partners of Free the Slaves, 234 00:13:26,656 --> 00:13:29,698 a fellow abolitionist on a moped suddenly sped up 235 00:13:29,698 --> 00:13:32,645 to our cruiser and tapped on the window. 236 00:13:32,645 --> 00:13:37,425 He told us to follow him down a dirt road into the jungle. 237 00:13:37,425 --> 00:13:40,214 At the end of the road, he urged us out of the car, 238 00:13:40,214 --> 00:13:42,893 and told the driver to quickly leave. 239 00:13:42,893 --> 00:13:46,238 Then he pointed toward this barely visible footpath, 240 00:13:46,238 --> 00:13:50,135 and said, "This is the path, this is the path. Go." 241 00:13:50,135 --> 00:13:53,804 As we started down the path, we pushed aside the vines 242 00:13:53,804 --> 00:13:57,604 blocking the way, and after about an hour of walking in, 243 00:13:57,604 --> 00:14:03,130 found that the trail had become flooded by recent rains, 244 00:14:03,130 --> 00:14:04,946 so I hoisted the photo gear above my head 245 00:14:04,946 --> 00:14:09,532 as we descended into these waters up to my chest. 246 00:14:09,532 --> 00:14:13,317 After another two hours of hiking, the winding trail 247 00:14:13,317 --> 00:14:17,613 abruptly ended at a clearing, and before us 248 00:14:17,613 --> 00:14:19,629 was a mass of holes 249 00:14:19,629 --> 00:14:23,449 that could fit into the size of a football field, 250 00:14:23,449 --> 00:14:29,043 and all of them were full of enslaved people laboring. 251 00:14:29,043 --> 00:14:32,188 Many women had children strapped to their backs 252 00:14:32,188 --> 00:14:34,228 while they were panning for gold, 253 00:14:34,228 --> 00:14:38,531 wading in water poisoned by mercury. 254 00:14:38,531 --> 00:14:43,409 Mercury is used in the extraction process. 255 00:14:43,409 --> 00:14:46,565 These miners are enslaved in a mine shaft 256 00:14:46,565 --> 00:14:49,639 in another part of Ghana. 257 00:14:49,639 --> 00:14:52,460 When they came out of the shaft, they were soaking wet 258 00:14:52,460 --> 00:14:54,738 from their own sweat. 259 00:14:54,738 --> 00:14:58,741 I remember looking into their tired, bloodshot eyes, 260 00:14:58,741 --> 00:15:04,482 for many of them had been underground for 72 hours. 261 00:15:04,482 --> 00:15:08,457 The shafts are up to 300 feet deep, and they carry out 262 00:15:08,457 --> 00:15:12,026 heavy bags of stone that later will be transported 263 00:15:12,026 --> 00:15:14,627 to another area, where the stone will be pounded 264 00:15:14,627 --> 00:15:18,572 so that they can extract the gold. 265 00:15:18,572 --> 00:15:22,677 At first glance, the pounding site seems full 266 00:15:22,677 --> 00:15:27,570 of powerful men, but when we look closer, 267 00:15:27,570 --> 00:15:32,437 we see some less fortunate working on the fringes, 268 00:15:32,437 --> 00:15:34,580 and children too. 269 00:15:34,580 --> 00:15:41,722 All of them are victim to injury, illness and violence. 270 00:15:41,722 --> 00:15:45,702 In fact, it's very likely that this muscular person 271 00:15:45,702 --> 00:15:50,237 will end up like this one here, racked with tuberculosis 272 00:15:50,237 --> 00:15:55,208 and mercury poisoning in just a few years. 273 00:15:55,208 --> 00:15:59,485 This is Manuru. When his father died, 274 00:15:59,485 --> 00:16:02,567 his uncle trafficked him to work with him in the mines. 275 00:16:02,567 --> 00:16:07,163 When his uncle died, Manuru inherited his uncle's debt, 276 00:16:07,163 --> 00:16:12,105 which further forced him into being enslaved in the mines. 277 00:16:12,105 --> 00:16:14,938 When I met him, he had been working in the mines 278 00:16:14,938 --> 00:16:19,731 for 14 years, and the leg injury that you see here 279 00:16:19,731 --> 00:16:21,744 is actually from a mining accident, 280 00:16:21,744 --> 00:16:26,861 one so severe doctors say his leg should be amputated. 281 00:16:26,877 --> 00:16:30,827 On top of that, Manuru has tuberculosis, 282 00:16:30,827 --> 00:16:33,871 yet he's still forced to work day in and day out 283 00:16:33,871 --> 00:16:36,115 in that mine shaft. 284 00:16:36,115 --> 00:16:41,278 Even still, he has a dream that he will become free 285 00:16:41,278 --> 00:16:44,391 and become educated with the help of local activists 286 00:16:44,391 --> 00:16:46,819 like Free the Slaves, 287 00:16:46,819 --> 00:16:49,171 and it's this sort of determination, 288 00:16:49,171 --> 00:16:53,049 in the face of unimaginable odds, 289 00:16:53,049 --> 00:17:00,409 that fills me with complete awe. 290 00:17:00,409 --> 00:17:03,709 I want to shine a light on slavery. 291 00:17:03,709 --> 00:17:05,964 When I was working in the field, 292 00:17:05,964 --> 00:17:08,645 I brought lots of candles with me, 293 00:17:08,645 --> 00:17:11,367 and with the help of my interpreter, 294 00:17:11,367 --> 00:17:13,683 I imparted to the people I was photographing 295 00:17:13,683 --> 00:17:16,794 that I wanted to illuminate their stories 296 00:17:16,794 --> 00:17:18,861 and their plight, 297 00:17:18,861 --> 00:17:22,366 so when it was safe for them, and safe for me, 298 00:17:22,366 --> 00:17:25,707 I made these images. 299 00:17:25,707 --> 00:17:27,940 They knew their image would be seen 300 00:17:27,940 --> 00:17:29,769 by you out in the world. 301 00:17:29,769 --> 00:17:33,513 I wanted them to know that we will be bearing witness 302 00:17:33,513 --> 00:17:37,442 to them, and that we will do whatever we can 303 00:17:37,442 --> 00:17:42,132 to help make a difference in their lives. 304 00:17:42,132 --> 00:17:45,612 I truly believe, if we can see one another 305 00:17:45,612 --> 00:17:50,096 as fellow human beings, then it becomes very difficult 306 00:17:50,096 --> 00:17:55,300 to tolerate atrocities like slavery. 307 00:17:55,300 --> 00:17:58,984 These images are not of issues. They are of people, 308 00:17:58,984 --> 00:18:02,249 real people, like you and me, all deserving 309 00:18:02,249 --> 00:18:05,729 of the same rights, dignity and respect 310 00:18:05,729 --> 00:18:07,958 in their lives. 311 00:18:07,958 --> 00:18:11,193 There is not a day that goes by that I don't think 312 00:18:11,193 --> 00:18:16,472 of these many beautiful, mistreated people 313 00:18:16,472 --> 00:18:21,041 I've had the tremendous honor of meeting. 314 00:18:21,041 --> 00:18:24,571 I hope that these images awaken a force 315 00:18:24,571 --> 00:18:27,617 in those who view them, people like you, 316 00:18:27,617 --> 00:18:31,893 and I hope that force will ignite a fire, 317 00:18:31,893 --> 00:18:36,816 and that fire will shine a light on slavery, 318 00:18:36,816 --> 00:18:40,825 for without that light, the beast of bondage 319 00:18:40,825 --> 00:18:44,009 can continue to live in the shadows. 320 00:18:44,009 --> 00:18:46,986 Thank you very much. 321 00:18:46,986 --> 00:19:00,239 (Applause)