The Truth Isn't Sexy
The Truth Isn't Sexy was a campaign designed to address the demand side of human trafficking.
Si Johnston and I met up at Skooterworks in 2004, as we talked about contemporary missions, he started telling me about the reality and scope of human trafficking in the UK.... I was blown away and knew we had to do something!
In October of '04, we hosted a mini conference to get the lay of the land in terms of what was going on with human trafficking. It became clear that the gap was demand. Human Trafficking grows because demand is escalating.
We invited people to be part of a creative team and set about designing a beer mat (coaster) campaign. Aimie Littlier became the director for the campaign and really drove us to monumental success, from a parliamentary launch and the airwaves of Radio 4, to the pubs across london and the UK.
The design of the beer mats was grounded in the cultural context of the UK. Creatively inspired by the calling cards prostitutes post in phone booths across europe. There is a provocative image on the front to grab ones attention and then when you turn it over you are faced with the reality of human trafficking.
TTIS aimed to link in people's minds that by putting money into the sex industry, a 'demand culture' is created which human traffickers are very happy to supply. Traffickers will only go where there is money to be made. When women have been forced, manipulated or coerced into the sex industry, THE TRUTH ISN'T SEXY.
The night before our parliamentary launch, BRMC decided they wanted to do a benefit gig, so The Bloomsbury ballroom was where the campaign made its public debut. Our parliamentary launch was supported by members of each political party as well as members from both the House of Lords and the House of Commons.
After the parliamentary launch we realized we were going to have to come up with a distribution strategy that required zero funding: the PUB CRAWLS were launched. We distributed beer mats to hundreds of pubs across the nation, and had hundreds of people get passionate about stopping human trafficking!
Aside from winning awards from Creative Review and the New Internationalist, the UK government did a u-turn in their stance on demand. In the autumn of '08 the gov't report said "Girls that are trafficked don't have a choice men do" They are now planning new initiatives to address demand.
Traffickers prey on the vulnerability of others: women, children, the poor, the orphaned, the weak, the naïve, the desperate, and the defenseless. Each year millions of people worldwide are trafficked, either lured by lies or blatantly forced against their will, often crossing international borders. It is, in essence, modern-day slavery. (The annual US revenue is projected at 9.5 Billion Dollars a year and growing)
For more information on The Truth Isn't Sexy, click here