Interview with Kyle Westaway & Anthony Dodero | The Blind Project: Empowering Survivors of Human Trafficking in Southeast Asia

By envisionGood | June 18 2010 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

First, a quick shout-out of thanks to Cynthia Hellen of Girls Who Rock New York for connecting me with her friends Kyle Westaway and Anthony Dodero at The Blind Project.

Last week I had the good fortune to meet with Kyle and Anthony to learn about The Blind Project, as well as to learn about their new fashion brand called Biographe. In this interview, Kyle and Anthony tell us about the origins of The Blind Project, an organization comprised of a team of passionate professionals who contribute talents and skills to empower survivors of the commercial sex trade in Southeast Asia.

Right now millions of women and children are enslaved and exploited in the multi-billion dollar commercial sex trade. According to a recent report from the U.S. State Department, over 12 million people are trafficked each year. Treated like meaningless commodities, victims are sold and bought, and sold and bought again. Often, even when rescued, many fall back into the trade because of limited resources, scarce economic opportunities, and/or negative social stigmas.

This is Part I of a three-part series. Please also see Part II and III (coming soon!) where Kyle and Anthony talk about “Biographe”, the for-profit initiative of The Blind Project. Biographe is a global fashion brand that provides dignified work and training opportunities to survivors of human trafficking.

Part I: Behind-The-Scenes: The Story of The Blind Project

Katrina: Well I’m super excited to meet with both of you, so thank you so much for joining. I’m with Anthony and Kyle of The Blind Project. And, can you please share what is The Blind Project?

Anthony: Yes, absolutely. The Blind Project is an organization. It started in New York City about three and a half years ago. I’m one of the co-founders, and there are two others, Chad Riley and Liem Nguyen.

We were roommates at the time. And we were all working in creative fields and we were inspired to go to Southeast Asia to investigate the issue of human trafficking and how it existed and really just ask questions about how we can be a part of the solution.

Katrina: And what got you initially interested in this issue?

Anthony: My journey is that I actually worked with another friend of mine on a documentary – this was back in college. And it really focused on human trafficking in the U.S. And at the time, I had never heard of it, and it was really a wake-up call to me that this was happening in my own backyard. Then, fast forward a few years later and I’m living with these guys in New York City. We’re all in a sense “burned out with our careers” and wanted to do more with our talents. A friend of ours handed us a book called “Terrify No More” which is written by Gary Haugen of IJM. And (the book) really detailed the problem of human trafficking and what was going on in Cambodia. And that for us sparked this interest in, hey, let’s go see for ourselves really, is it hype? is it sensationalized? Let’s see what the truth is behind closed doors. That was the initial launch for us going.

Katrina: And what is IJM?

Anthony: International Justice Mission. For those of you who don’t know, check out their website. Amazing organization. They do a lot of on-the-ground stuff in Southeast Asia, all over the world. Their focus really is on bringing down these brothel owners. They build cases, they document. They don’t just go in and pull these women out of exploitive situations. They really build surmounting evidence so that they can bring change on the legal side.

Kyle: So that’s how I actually got introduced to this issue as well, through IJM separately. Anthony and team were reading a book and I was in law school in Virginia. International Justice Mission is an amazing organization. And they tend to work on the rescue side and on the legal prosecution side, so it had that appeal to me. We co-founded a campus chapter at my school. And I just learned a ton about what the issue was, how it was going on, the extent of trafficking.

Katrina: Is that how you both connected with one another? Through IJM?

Kyle and Anthony: No. (laughter)

Katrina: How did the two of you meet?

Kyle: I think it was through a mutual friend of ours, through a non-profit fundraiser or something.

Anthony: Yes, through mutual interests. The Blind Project was just starting and we were looking for more people to help out and you know, Kyle is just amazing. He has a lot of skills that I don’t have, and that is really what our team is all about. It’s about using our collective skills.

Collecting Data: Field Research & Meeting With Partners In Southeast Asia

Katrina: That’s fantastic. So Anthony, you are one of the co-founders, and you and your friends traveled to Southeast Asia to check out the scene for yourself, right?

Anthony: I think for us it was that two of us quit our jobs. We needed a change. And this was something that we felt we could be invested in. We were very passionate about it. This was something that really touched us on the emotional side. And even being a woman’s rights issue, it was something that we could be a part of the solution.

So we spent a month over there. We literally did cold calls. We looked in phone books and looked in any organization that was doing work on the ground, and said “hey, we want to get together with you, we want to see what you are doing to combat this issue, and maybe how we can be a part of that solution”.

What we found is that a lot of organizations did not have the infrastructure – they were doing amazing things on the ground, things that we could not be doing. But what we found was a lack of, basically, in what our strengths were: marketing, business development – they did not have any of that. And that was basically what focused us in on where we are at now.

Katrina: That’s amazing. And what did you experience when you were in Southeast Asia speaking with these organizations?

Anthony: There’s a great organization called Hagar that were intially working with a few years ago and they do phenomenal work. And so we investigated their after-care facilities. The other side of it which looking back now I think was a little bit of probably a mistake, is that we did go into some brothels. We kind of had this mentality like “we’re going to be these heroes – we’re going to go in and we’re going to pull these women out, and we’re going to rescue them and bring them to these shelters where they can be protected”.

And we found some girls. I think the youngest was eleven years old. We tried to purchase her out. We tried to bring her out, and they would not let her go. She was from Vietnam and the brothel owner would not negotiate a deal to let her leave the brothel.

And I think on the emotional side for me it was one of the lowest places as far as me feeling like I could not do anything. I’ll give the analogy. You know you walk around New York City or wherever you live in the States and you see homeless people. There are things you can do. And this was the first time in my life that I felt that I could not do anything. And I left emotionally torn, angry. And it became this fuel over the months to get this started and to continue to do it after all these years, I still think back to that girl.

Katrina: And how are the women and girls rescued? Do they escape of their own accord?

Kyle: Generally what happens is they either figure out a way to escape or leave, or they are somehow rescued by a police raid or something like that. Those are the two general ways that it happens.

Anthony: Part of it is getting the word out regarding which organizations can take them in. That’s part of it, a lot of these women do not know where they can go. So that’s a big tip if they hear that an organization will help them, that’s a big plus for them to take that risk and leave. A lot of them can’t go back to their home villages. It’s very difficult for them to be accepted back, so these shelters are a great step that brings them back and rehabilitates them to a place where they are strong again.

Anthony’s Advice On Direct Efforts To Rescue Victims
Anthony: (On attempts to rescue victims directly): I won’t do this anymore and I don’t recommend anyone else to do it. I think it’s unsafe and I think a lot of times it’s actually more detriment to the women.

Kyle Talks About What You Can Do To Help
Kyle: For people with good intentions out there, there are so many ways that your talents can be used that trying to make that rescue is probably futile and is most likely counter-productive.

Katrina: So based on your experience, you decided with your friends to start The Blind Project. Can you share a little bit more about what The Blind Project is and how it helps these women and the victims of sex trafficking?

Anthony: That title, the name of our organization, comes from the fact that we ourselves were a bit blind to this issue. So that is where the word comes up and also it’s because a lot of people don’t know about it. A lot of people don’t realize that this issue exists in this world today. So it’s part of our job to put the world out there and get people discussing about the issue.

Kyle: The secondary meaning of the idea of The Blind Project is not only that our eyes in the west were blind, but that these women are blind to the potential of what their life could be. A lot of them are trafficked at the age of eleven, twelve, thirteen years old, and they’re told that their only value is really in the brothel. So we want to open their eyes to the potential of what their life could be.

The Solution: Preventing Human Trafficking Through Skills Training & Dignified Work

We spent the last three years going back and forth with a bunch of trips, and learned a lot over the last three, four years, and have come to realize that the commercial sex trade has so many different elements to it. But I think one of the most pre-dominate elements is economic in nature.

And we’ve realized that what makes these women vulnerable to the sex trade is that they are living in abject poverty. And what is probably the biggest hurdle for them to come out of that if they can escape of if they are rescued is how can they put food on their table – for them and their families.

After hearing a lot of stories and meeting women face-to-face, and talking with a ton of organizations we felt that we should probably look at an economic solution. That is probably the best way that we can do our contribution to solve this problem.

Thank you so much Kyle and Anthony for sharing your insights and for time to do this interview.

Stay tuned for Part II of this interview with Kyle and Anthony. To learn more about another extraordinary organization that is creating economic opportunities as a way to prevent human trafficking, check out our previous interview with Eve Blossom, Founder of Lulan Artisans.

Anthony Dodero | Co-Founder, The Blind Project

About: Anthony co-founded The Blind Project, an organization that empowers survivors of the commercial sex trade in Southeast Asia through media and a new global fashion brand called Biographe. Website: www.TheBlindProject.org & www.BeABiographer.com

Kyle Westaway | Director of Business Development, The Blind Project

About: By day, Kyle is founder of Westaway Law and an attorney with experience focused on entertainment, small to mid-sized businesses and non-profits. After hours, Kyle leads business development efforts at The Blind Project, an organization comprised of passionate individuals who have joined together to contribute talents and skills to empower survivors of the commercial sex trade in Southeast Asia. Website: www.TheBlindProject.org & www.WestawayLaw.com