Meet Kevin Bales

Oct 16, 2012 by Judy

Kevin Bales is the co-founder and former president of Free the Slaves, whose mission is to end all forms of human slavery within the next 25 years. He’s the author of “Ending Slavery: How We Free Today’s Slaves.” As an author, a professor of sociology, and consultant to the United Nations Global Program on Human Trafficking, Kevin Bales is one of the world’s foremost experts on modern slavery. He has made it his mission to eradicate global slavery.

Along with traveling the world doing investigative research, authoring books, racking up human rights awards, and teaming up with Simon Pell to form a fundraising consultant firm, Pell & Bales Ltd., he established Free the Slaves, a nonprofit whose brilliant website is packed with facts and inspirations to action. With Free the Slaves, Bales has mapped out ways to spread the message and gain resources that assign governments, the UN, business, communities and individuals specific roles in the fight to end slavery. He’s working on a book about the relationship of slavery and environmental destruction. Armed with a compelling presence and a hopeful heart, he is enticing the world to help, so that we can all one day say the words: Mission Accomplished.

Backing up a bit, in 1990, Bales teamed with Simon Pell, then head of Arts for Labour in the UK, to form the fund-raising and research consultancy, Pell & Bales Ltd.The firm raises funds for medical charities, human rights groups, environmental campaigns, overseas development, and the Labour Party. In November 2011 fundraising by the company passed the one billion pound mark (£1,000,000,000 or $1.6 billion dollars).

He has since served as a Trustee of Anti-Slavery International and as a consultant to the United Nations Global Program on Trafficking of Human Beings. He has advised the US, British, Irish, Norwegian and Nepali governments and the Economic Community of West African States on matters relating to the formulation of policy on slavery and human trafficking. Bales edited an Anti-Human Trafficking Toolkit for the United Nations, and published a report on forced labor in the US with the Human Rights Center at Berkeley.

http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_bales_how_to_combat_modern_slavery.html

His book,  Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy, was nominated for a pulitzer prize and presently, in addition to his role as Co-Founder of Free The Slaves, Bales holds the position of Professor of Contemporary Slavery at the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation (WISE), University of Hull, as well as that of Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Roehampton University in London. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the International Cocoa Initiative . The story of Kevin Bales shows us the difference one person can make in changing the world we live in.

You can also read Lusso Bags story on Free the Slaves from August 2012.