Google Creates New Coalition to Fight Slavery

Google has always been well-known for its philanthropic efforts. The popular search engine company, whose official motto is “Don’t Be Evil,” has promoted a long-term goal to donate one percent of its profits to various charities. In this spirit, Google announced today that they would be donating $11.5 million to help combat the global slave trade.

The Continued Menace of Slavery

Although many people, especially in the West, believe that slavery was eradicated in the 19th century, there are still 27 million people throughout the world who are subjugated to bondage. With the donation, Google is hoping to create a coalition of several charitable organizations to help combat slavery, which is still endemic in parts of the developing world.

Much of the donated money will go to support anti-slavery efforts in India, a country of more than a billion people that still suffers from widespread poverty in both its cities and in the countryside. Many poor individuals in India are forced to work as virtual slaves in sweatshops in order to produce cheap manufacturing goods for export.

However, the efforts by Google well go well beyond just forced labor. The charitable donations will also go towards the fight against the global sex trade, where many poor women are often either tricked or forced into prostitution in wealthy countries, including the United States.

Raising Awareness

Through this donation, Google is hoping to raise attention to an issue that is often times overlooked by much of the world. Despite legal statutes that prevent slavery in most countries, the practice goes on unabated through lack of enforcement. Indeed, as Jaquelline Fuller, the director of charitable giving at Google, noted during the announcement, there are now more slaves in the world today than ever before.

Google is hoping to counter this lack of knowledge on the issue by informing Americans about how slavery affects their everyday lives, especially as it concerns the products that they consume. Among other items, clothing and electronic devices are often times made in part with slave labor.

Google likes to choose a yearly theme on which to focus their charitable endeavors, believing that a concentration of attention and funds will allow more good to be done compared to a more shotgun approach, an idea that has also been adopted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

This year’s theme of slavery was designed to gel with Google’s core corporate mission, which is to promote the free exchange of information throughout the world. With this gift, Google is attempting to expand that mission to a broader understanding of freedom.

Additional Efforts

Google’s gift to the anti-slavery campaign was only part of a $40 million charitable giving drive designed to help numerous non-profit organizations in a variety of fields. In line with Google’s fundamental business, many of these gifts are going towards science, technology and education grants.

Over the course of 2011, Google has donated more than $100 million to a variety of charitable organizations. The company hopes to expand even further into charitable giving in future years to help promote goals and causes of its choosing.

Zienna Miller supports many causes worldwide, including her adoption of her recent pets; teacup pigs. Her Hollywood actor friend, Daniel Hayes, supports many charitable causes also.

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