Italy's Umbria region has started a project called "Free Life," which aims to fight human trafficking and exploitation through an awareness-raising campaign.
The regional government in Umbria has pledged to fight human trafficking and the exploitation of adults and children through the new "Free Life" project (an acronym for 'Fuori dal Rischio Emarginazione ed Esclusione - Liberi Insieme Favorendo l'Emersione) funded by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers.
According to the Umbra Integra website for migrants, "Free Life aims to ensure that victims or people at high risk of human trafficking or exploitation and those who have requested or obtained the right to international protection have adequate living conditions, food, lodgings and support in the difficult process of freeing themselves from exploitation."
On the streets and over the phone
A wide of organizations and departments are involved in the project, including local authorities, the local police department, healthcare agencies and hospitals. The aim of the project, as stated at its launch, is "to act at both the political level, with the establishment of a governance roundtable and an anti-trafficking agreement, as well as at a more strictly operative level including through intervention by people taking to the streets, and the activation of an anti-trafficking hotline (Tel: 800.290.290)."
Awareness-raising campaign to 'come out of the shadows'
The main targets of "Free Life" are asylum seekers and unaccompanied foreign minors who frequently fall victim to trafficking. There is also a focus on the victims of sexual exploitation, forced marriages, begging and forced labor. In the case of forced labor, "most people are unaware of the existence of large criminal organizations for which the victims are forced to work," Umbria Integra noted.
In order to raise awareness among the wider public about the issue, the Umbria regional government has sponsored the "Esci dall'Ombra" ("Come out of the Shadows") campaign using social media. The campaign shows the image of two women and two men from different countries whose faces are divided into a game of positives and negatives, '"to highlight the difference between before and after going through an experience of moral deprivation and exploitation. There are also four associated terms that turn from negative to positive, to indicate the transition from an inhumane condition to one of social inclusion: "InVisibile, InUmana, InDifeso, InEsistente" ("Invisible-Visible, Inhuman-Human, Helpless-Protected, Nonexistent-Present').