About Us
The New Underground Railroad™ (NUR) is the world’s largest directory of volunteers, facilities, service providers, and organizations working to end modern slavery. As more and more people join from around the world every day, NUR becomes even more valuable in the fight against human trafficking. You can use this website to search by city, state or country to find the resources you need.
NUR is a free public service provided by End Slavery Now. To join, simply choose your category in the drop-down menu and fill in the information requested. Please note that NUR validates all listings before publishing.
For more information about End Slavery Now, visit our website at www.endslaverynow.com.
Our mission is to end slavery in our lifetime.
A world without slavery.
Our purpose is to support the work of grassroots activists and anti-trafficking organizations, and to grow and advance the anti-trafficking movement, by consolidating and sharing resources, best practices, and events; and by promoting their work through various social media channels and free listings in the New Underground Railroad™.
The New Underground Railroad leverages the power of the Internet combined with database technology to empower members of the anti-trafficking movement to efficiently coordinate their efforts to combat slavery; to share information with partners and stakeholders; to coordinate grassroots efforts through email exchange; and to make meaningful contributions in the anti-trafficking movement.
Conceived in the fall of 2008, ESN officially launched the Take Action Database, New Abolitionist email service, Nationwide Human Trafficking Calendar, and online anti-trafficking awareness store in December 2009. ESN’s Internet-based New Underground Railroad™ went live on January 1, 2010. To date, the websites have served thousands of visitors from all 50 U.S. states and over 88 countries around the world.
Service providers listed in the New Underground Railroad database are vetted and validated carefully. Each organization’s information is checked for accuracy to the best of our ability prior to posting. Please be aware that the process of investigation and validating takes time, and you should expect a delay before you see your listing appear. Organizations that do not provide complete and verifiable information, or that do not have active anti-slavery or human trafficking programs, will not be posted. End Slavery Now is not responsible for changes in information or programs offered by any entities listed.
Our Board of Directors
Lauren is the Communications Director for the Solar Electric Light Fund. She came to SELF from the corporate sector with a background in sustainability and extensive experience in developing countries. Her passion for bringing solar energy to the developing world was formed early in her professional career while working in the Caribbean basin. One of the founding partners of Worrell Water Technologies in Charlottesville, Virginia, Lauren brings over 12 years senior executive experience in various marketing, communications and operations roles. She received her MBA from the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia and her BS in International Business from Florida Atlantic University. Lauren recently stepped down from her role on the leadership team for the DC professional chapter of Net Impact to devote more time to End Slavery Now. She is a member of the anti-human trafficking group, DC Stop Modern Slavery and assistant organizer for VA Stop Modern Slavery.
Dr. Larson, Associate Professor of Business Administration, has served for 20 years on the faculty of The Darden School teaching in the MBA program and in Executive Education in the areas of entrepreneurship, innovation, and sustainable business. Sustainable business is a "triple bottom line" approach by corporations incorporating economic, social and environmental performance considerations into operations and strategy. Building upon earlier research in entrepreneurship, alliances, and network organizations, her current research, teaching, and curriculum development focuses on innovation by companies engaged in sustainable business as a strategic and competitive advantage. Her publications have appeared in journals including Administrative Science Quarterly, The Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, and Interfaces (international operations journal, special issue on sustainable business practices). Her work has also appeared in edited volumes on innovation, green chemistry, ethics, and entrepreneurship.
Larson was co-founder in 2002 of The Ingenuity Project, a multifaceted program to integrate theory and practice on entrepreneurship/innovation together with sustainable business practices, and to encourage their use in management education as well as corporations. Entrepreneurship theory, green chemistry design, industrial ecology, and cradle to cradle design were illustrative of the core approach.
She holds a PhD from Harvard University, awarded jointly by the Harvard Business School and the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
Amanda has been an anti-trafficking and human rights activist for almost a decade. She currently serves as the Program Associated for the American Bar Association (ABA) Center for Human Rights, where she manages projects on human trafficking, HIV/AIDS, genocide and mass atrocities, LGBT rights, and other current human rights issues. Prior to her current position with the Center for Human Rights, she managed special projects for the ABA Commission on Domestic Violence on civil remedies for human trafficking victims and domestic violence in LGBT communities. Before joining the ABA, Amanda implemented domestic and international human trafficking projects and research for Shared Hope International. She has also served Free the Slaves as a volunteer and been a member of the Washington DC Human Trafficking Task Force and DC Stop Modern Slavery. In 2005, Amanda lived and worked with at-risk and trafficked youth in Tanzania and Zanzibar.
In addition to her work with the ABA, Amanda is also currently the Lead Writer for the End Human Trafficking Community at Change.org, where she blogs daily about all aspects of human trafficking. She has been interviewed by ABC News, CNN.com, Alternet, and other news outlets and given presentations, conducted trainings, and spoken at conferences around the U.S. and overseas. Amanda has a special interest in identifying and developing the role of social media and emerging technology to bolster grassroots engagement in addressing human trafficking around the world. You can read her blog at http://humantrafficking.change.org/.
Amanda received her bachelor’s degree from Elon University and is currently pursuing a M.S. in Justice, Law, and Society at the American University School of Public Affairs. In her spare time, Amanda enjoys reading science fiction and fantasy literature, hiking and biking local trails, and eating Fair Trade chocolate.
Our Advisors
Dr. Kevin Bales is an expert on modern slavery and president of Free the Slaves, the U.S. sister organization of Anti-Slavery International (the world’s oldest human rights organization). He is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Roehampton University in London, Visiting Professor at the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation, University of Hull, as well as serving on the Board of Directors of the International Cocoa Initiative.
Bales's book Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy, published in 1999, has now been published in ten other languages. Archbishop Desmond Tutu called it "a well researched, scholarly and deeply disturbing expose of modern slavery." A revised edition was published in 2005. This book was based on the first-hand in-depth study of five slave-based "businesses" in five different countries: Thailand (prostitution); Mauritania (water selling); Brazil (charcoal production); India (agriculture); and Pakistan (brick making). His book was the basis for the 2000 film Slavery: A Global Investigation.
Bales work was informed by the development of globalization theory by Martin Albrow, the theorization of human rights by Darren O'Byrne, and the empirical training he received from Jack Gibbs and Larry DeBord. Bales's work won the Premio Viareggio for services to humanity in 2000, and the documentary based on his work won the Peabody Award for 2000 and two Emmy Awards in 2002. He was awarded the Laura Smith Davenport Human Rights Award in 2005; the Judith Sargeant Murray Award for Human Rights in 2004; and the Human Rights Award of the University of Alberta in 2003. In 2006 the association of British Universities named Bales' work as one of the top "100 world-changing discoveries of the last fifty years." In December 2008, Utne Reader named him one of "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World."
Bales is a trustee of Anti-Slavery International and was a consultant to the United Nations Global Program on Trafficking of Human Beings. He has been invited to advise the U.S., British, Irish, Norwegian, and Nepali governments, as well as the governments of the Economic Community of West African States, on the formulation of policy on slavery and human trafficking. He recently edited an Anti-Human Trafficking Toolkit for the United Nations, and published, with the Human Rights Center at Berkeley, a report on forced labor in the USA. Bales is working with the chocolate industry to remove child and slave labor from the product chain.
Bales writes on contemporary slavery (see for example his feature article in the April 2002 Scientific American). His book Understanding Global Slavery was published in September 2005. His book Ending Slavery: How We Free Today's Slaves was published in 2007. In 2008, with Zoe Trodd, he published To Plead Our Own Cause: Personal Stories by Today’s Slaves; and with seven of the Magnum photographers, Documenting Disposable People: Contemporary Global Slavery. In 2009, with Ron Soodalter, he published The Slave Next Door: Modern Slavery in the United States; and Modern Slavery with Zoe Trodd and Alex Williamson. He is currently writing a book on the relationship of slavery and environmental destruction; and with Jody Sarich, a book exploring forced marriage worldwide. He gained his Ph.D. at the London School of Economics.
In 1990, Bales teamed with Simon Pell, then head of Arts for Labour in the UK, to form the fundraising and research consultancy Pell & Bales Ltd. Since that time the firm has grown to be the largest company of its type in Britain, and has raised more than $1 billion for medical charities, human rights groups, environmental campaigns, overseas development, and the Labour Party.
Kevin Bales was Visiting Professor of International Studies at the Croft Institute at the University of Mississippi from 2001 to 2005.
Ray Lian works as a Senior Sales Consultant for software company Oracle Corporation, specializing in helping US Federal Government agencies apply enterprise software to empower their mission. At night and on the weekends, he is the lead organizer of DC Stop Modern Slavery (DC SMS), a grassroots organization in Washington DC dedicated to combating human trafficking and modern slavery. Since 2007, Ray has worked with community members to transform DC SMS from a small community of concerned citizens to an all-volunteer grassroots organization with over 800 members and culture of action and collaboration. At DC SMS, he oversaw 33 community projects, 19 public events, over 40 expert speakers, the education of thousands, and a 2009 walk with over 700 participants and over $40,000 raised. His work has led to the formation of Stop Modern Slavery chapters in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. Ray is also the executive director of Stop Modern Slavery, Inc., an umbrella non-profit organization for community groups around the US. Through his work in human rights, Ray has been recognized as an expert in grassroots organizing and has advised human rights leaders throughout the US and world. Ray received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Virginia.
Our Contact Information
End Slavery Now P.O. Box 65007 Washington, DC 20035 info@endslaverynow.com