10,000 Push-ups to Crush Slavery

Running with Project Futures

2012-01-24T08:59:00.001+11:00

I've just signed up to run the City 2 Surf with Project Futures in August. I'll have a GoFundRaise page up and running soon.

New Twitter Feed

2012-01-10T21:00:00.004+11:00

I've started a new twitter feed: @crushslavery. Follow it now.

International Day for the Abolition of Slavery

2011-12-02T06:36:00.001+11:00

A superb day to wrap up the 2011 campaign. Actually, I'm just about to mail off the petition to Kevin Rudd & Julie Bishop.

Updated stats are:

30,000 people watched me live in Martin Place

23,000 visited the facebook cause (guesstimate after stats removed)
16,900 visited crushslavery.com
183 read the online newspaper I started last month
--------
40,000 reached online

310,000 readers of MX newspaper
147,000 readers of The Sutherland Shire Leader
147,000 second time in The Leader
147,000 third time in The Leader
---------
751,000 newspaper readers

Plus untold thousands reached second & third hand from folks forwarding the template email on to their friends & colleagues. (Thank you!)

148 joined the facebook cause
263 signed the online petition
123 signed the offline petition
5 people joined me doing push-ups
----
539 personal responses

Check out Crush Slavery News, and contact me if you're gonna join us next year, in Martin Place, or Sydney Airport, or wherever you want! We want to make this a viral craze like planking or extreme ironing.

10,000 Push-ups in the Bag!

2011-10-22T08:13:00.001+11:00

Yep, job done. And I'll be doing it all again next year!To keep in the loop, subscribe to Crush Slavery News and @crushslaveryMy hearty thanks to the folks that joined me in the campaign.Together, we can Crush Slavery!

2011-10-20T15:55:00.000+11:00

Some great public awareness ads from Anti-Slavery Australia...

	Domestic Worker Trafficking for domestic servitude can happen in private homes. Debt bondage, coercion, exploitation, sexual assault, threats of deportation and social isolation may indicate trafficking.
	Restaurant Worker People who are trafficked may be unlawful or hold visas entitling them to work in Australia. Signs of trafficking may include debt bondage, deception, coercion, threat and control.
	Agriculture Worker This 30 second short film is about trafficking into agricultural work and shows how coercion, withholding of passport, non-payment of wages, and threats to report to immigration can be signs of trafficking.

Nearly done - for now.

2011-10-16T18:49:00.000+11:00

Only 300 push-ups and 27 million slaves to go!

The first campaign is drawing to a close. (Just in time for the baby!) But this cause is just getting started. I'll be doing it again next year - even larger and louder.

I've totally found my lifetime calling here. We're all flooded daily by a barrage of great causes, but the combined effect only seems to make you keep your money to yourself. You're best

Over the last 100 days, I've reached about 40,000 people live in Martin Place, 17,000 via facebook, and 11,600 via crushslavery.com, which makes nearly 70,000, plus untold thousands reached second & third hand from folks forwarding the template email on to their friends & colleagues. By way of responses, I've had 134 people join the facebook cause, 226 signed the online petition, plus 100 offline signatures, which adds up to a healthy 460 personal responses. (And that's not even counting the newspaper readerships of 310,000 for MX and 2x 147,000 for both times in The Sutherland Shire Leader, totalling 600,000.)

But let's give the first campaign one last push: Forward the http://j.mp/slaverypetition link to all your friends!. :)

While we prepare for the next campaign, you might like to subscribe to the new online paper: Crush Slavery News. Stay in touch, and join me in 2012! We'll be taking this to a whole new level next year!

Watch out world - we're gonna knock slavery over in this lifetime!

75% Complete

2011-09-15T15:33:00.002+10:00

I never thought I'd get here, but tomorrow I'll have reached three quarters of my goal. Thanks to everyone who's stopped by to sign the petition and encourage me along the way. The number of people genuinely concerned about the issue of slavery has really encouraged me.Every lunchtime I drag myself down to embarrass myself yet again in Martin Place, but every time someone stops by for a chat and to sign the petition it really lifts my spirits. I always walk back to the office feeling much happier than when I left. So to everyone that's showed an interest, THANK YOU. :)

Half way there!

2011-08-17T09:25:00.000+10:00

Thank you everyone for helping me spread the word. In the last 6 weeks, many people have learned of the scale and severity of the issues of human trafficking and slavery.

All going well, I’ll be hitting the half-way mark this Friday. If you’d like to celebrate my 5,000th push-up with me, then join me in the ground foyer on Friday at 12:25pm, when I head down to the MLC Centre to do my daily 100.

How you can help:

Sign the petition
Forward this draft email to your friends

Nefarious Merchant of Souls

2011-08-12T09:57:00.001+10:00

Why am I doing this to myself?

2011-08-02T17:20:00.000+10:00

Just cracked the 1/3rd mark, closing at 3400 push-ups for the day. But it was a begrudging effort. After a month of publicly humiliating myself day after day, you'd think it would get less embarrassing, or at least easier. Nope. The push-ups are still as unpleasant as ever, especially when I'm feeling a bit below par.

The same embarrassing act, consistently performed every day for a hundred days - I daresay this is one of the hardest things I've ever done! Every lunchtime when I carry my ~~cross~~ box down to Martin Place, I ask myself why I'm doing this to myself.

But I only have to think of my delightful 3-year old girl in a few years time, just starting to blossom, kidnapped to serve an endless stream of fat, sweaty, porn-addicted men forcing her to do whatever disgusting things that their sick minds can concoct. To think of my own daughter writhing in pain, then falling in a hopeless heap like so much human trash - now that's enough anger-fuel to keep any father going.

Just you watch and see - I'm gonna see human trafficking abolished before I die.

25% done!

2011-07-24T21:12:00.002+10:00

I hit the quarter mark tomorrow: 2500 push-ups! Come celebrate the milestone with me at 12:30pm.

Email Your Friends

2011-07-23T22:53:00.008+10:00

Want to really help the cause? Would you consider sending this email to all your friends?

Dear All,

I wonder if you've seen Paul the Push-ups Guy in Martin Place recently? I'd like to tell you about his "10,000 Push-ups to Crush Slavery" campaign, at http://www.crushslavery.com

When he learned that we have 27 million slaves in the world, and read some of the gut-wrenching stories about what many children and sex slaves have to endure, Paul got so upset that he put together this campaign, to do 100 push-ups every day for 100 days in Martin Place, in the heart of Sydney, just to raise awareness about the issue.

After many months researching the best methods to combat slavery, he believes the best way is how Wilberforce did it last time: to change public opinion, which in turn forces the hand of government.

So he doesn't want your money - just your influence. Will you help us raise awareness by forwarding this email to all your friends?

What you can do:
1) Check out http://www.crushslavery.com/2011/06/press-release.html
2) Sign the petition to address the root cause of slavery, which is poverty http://j.mp/slaverypetition
3) Join the Facebook cause http://j.mp/slaverycause
4) Forward this email to all your friends.

Alone, he's just one crazy fella making a fool of himself in Martin Place. But together, we can make a difference.

Thank you!

Why am I doing this?

2011-07-22T08:38:00.002+10:00

I couldn't say it any better than Rob Morris, of Love146.org:

"The number pinned to her dress was 146..."

In 2002, the co-founders of Love 146 travelled to South East Asia on an exploratory trip to determine how they could serve in the fight against child sex trafficking. In one experience, a couple of our co-founders were taken undercover with investigators to a brothel, where they witnessed children being sold for sex. This was their experience. This is the story that changed our lives. 

"We found ourselves standing shoulder to shoulder with predators in a small room, looking at little girls through a pane of glass. All of the girls wore red dresses with a number pinned to their dress for identification. They sat, blankly watching cartoons on TV. They were vacant, shells of what a child should be. There was no light in their eyes, no life left. Their light had been taken from them. These children...raped each night... seven, ten, fifteen times every night. They were so young. Thirteen, eleven… it was hard to tell. Sorrow covered their faces with nothingness. Except one girl. One girl who wouldn’t watch the cartoons. Her number was 146. She was looking beyond the glass. She was staring out at us, with a piercing gaze. There was still fight left in her eyes. There was still life left in this girl...

"...All of these emotions begin to wreck you. Break you. It is agony. It is aching. It is grief. It is sorrow. The reaction is intuitive, instinctive. It is visceral. It releases a wailing cry inside of you. It elicits gut-level indignation. It is unbearable. I remember wanting to break through the glass. To take her away from that place. To scoop up as many of them as I could into my arms. To take all of them away. I wanted to break through the glass to tell her to keep fighting. To not give up. To tell her that we were coming for her…"

“Because we went in as part of an ongoing, undercover investigation on this particular brothel, we were unable to immediately respond. Evidence had to be collected in order to bring about a raid, and eventually justice on those running the brothel. It is an immensely difficult problem when an immediate response cannot address an emergency. Some time later, there was a raid on this brothel and children were rescued. But the girl who wore #146 was no longer there. We do not know what happened to her, but we will never forget her. She changed the course of all of our lives."

2011-07-12T16:55:00.003+10:00

1200 push-ups done, 8800 to go!
That's 12% already. Wow, this will fly past.

Thanks to everyone who's signing the petition - we just reached 100 signatures!

I'm gonna drop the 8:30am session, as there's heaps more folks around at 12:30pm. Every day I get one or two people asking me what I'm doing. Now, just to get those folks to spread the word to their friends!

Come join me, every dry weekday, in front of the MLC Centre in Martin Place:

The Country Where Slavery Is Still Normal

2011-07-05T20:57:00.000+10:00

The Country Where Slavery Is Still Normal: Half a million Mauritanians are enslaved - about 20 percent of the population. "Mauritanian slaves are forbidden from owning property, a last name, or legal custody of their own children."

See You at Hillsong

2011-07-05T11:29:00.000+10:00

I'm off to the Hillsong Conference for the next few days. They just asked me to do my push-ups on stage on Wednesday night before the night rally. All 100 in one go, in front of 25,000 people! Bring it on!!!

450 down, 9550 to go...

Push-ups with Christine Caine

2011-07-04T18:10:00.001+10:00

This is way more than mere coincidence. This is amazing.

So on my first day of doing my push-ups in Martin Place, who happens to stroll by but the couple that first brought the whole issue of human trafficking to my attention: Nick & Christine Caine of The A21 Campaign! She even did some push-ups with me!

I'm blown away by the serendipity. I believe we call this a "God-incidence".

100 push-ups down, 9,900 to go!

2011-07-01T23:08:00.000+10:00

Well, the first day of my campaign went well. I did 30, then 25, 20, 15. Lots of positive responses. MX newspaper called me up, with an interview on Monday. I appeared in the bank's magazine yesterday. This Backyard Abolitionist training is really exciting - the pieces are really starting to fit together for me. Thanks to all for your support. I'm pumped to be making a difference! :D

I start tomorrow!

2011-06-30T22:57:00.000+10:00

I'm heading off (right now) to Not For Sale's Backyard Academy training to learn more about Human Trafficking in Australia.

On the way, I'll be picking up my shiny new posters, printed at cost from the lovely guys at Marsh Media.

I did some practice push-ups this morning with my London / Hong Kong friend Paul Aldrich (he did 100, but I was dead at 60!)

So watch out for the crazy pushups guy in Leichhardt this weekend! Here goes!

The campaign starts tomorrow

2011-06-30T17:16:00.000+10:00

Press Release

2011-06-27T22:57:00.003+10:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

To celebrate the new financial year, Sutherland Shire resident Paul Harvey is starting a 100-day campaign entitled “10,000 push-ups to Crush Slavery” on July 1st to raise awareness about Human Trafficking, Slavery, and Forced Prostitution.

“When I learned that there are 27 million slaves in the world, it made me sick to my stomach. Children are worked to death by age 14 picking some of the cocoa that goes into the chocolate we eat. Girls as young as 6 are sold into forced prostitution and internet porn. There’s whole villages trapped in generations of debt bondage, forced to break rocks in wretched conditions, with no chance of escape. Disposable children thrown overboard with rocks around their ankles to untie fishing nets. The whole thing makes me flaming mad. We simply cannot let this obscene injustice continue.”

“This issue has really caught me by the heart-strings, and I’m going all out to make my campaign as big as one bloke can make it. I’ve got signs, flyers, a website, a Facebook cause, a petition, and I’ve printed a whole range of custom-designed clothing that I've made available online, so now I’m a human billboard for the cause.”

So what does he want from us? Nothing but spreading the word. “This needs more than just once-off sponsorship donations. It needs a change in public opinion. And you can do that by joining my Facebook cause, signing the petition, and sharing it with all your friends.”

“I may be just a regular Dad from the Shire, just another cog in a big city bank, but I believe that I can make a difference, even if I do all 10,000 push-ups on my own.”

You can watch or join Paul doing his fifty push-ups in a suit at 8:30am and another fifty at 12:30am near the MLC Centre in Martin Place every weekday (as weather & council allows), and at assorted locations in Sutherland Shire on the weekend. You can track his progress, learn more about the issue, and join his Facebook cause at http://www.crushslavery.com.

NOTES TO EDITORS

In 2005, the International Labour Organization estimated a global annual profit of US$ 44.3 billion from all forms of slavery, and $33.9 billion from commercial sexual exploitation. Human trafficking is second only to drug trafficking as the most profitable illegal industry in the world.

With a profit margin of 70% or higher, virtually unlimited demand, and desperate poverty producing an unlimited supply of goods that virtually ship themselves “if you kick ‘em hard enough” - it’s a business model that many find simply too good to refuse.

Siddharth Kara’s 2006 research revealed that you can purchase a trafficked girl in Western Europe for an average of US $4 800 (a stunner of course, and already “broken-in” so you’ll get no trouble), then you can earn an average of US $10 570/month by renting out her body. In some countries you can buy a slave for as little as $5. People have become as disposable as paper cups.

And this is not just restricted to a few undeveloped countries. UNODC reports that people are trafficked from 127 countries, to be exploited in 137 countries, including Australia.

But the good news is that we can eradicate slavery in our lifetime, if we all do our part. The world’s leading expert on slavery, Dr Kevin Bales, outlined a comprehensive 25-year plan to abolish slavery in his book “Ending Slavery”. The book outlines hundreds of practical actions we can make at a personal, business, community & government level.

MORE INFORMATION

http://crushslavery.com/2011/06/why-am-i-doing-this.html
http://crushslavery.com/2011/06/i-dont-want-your-money-i-want-your.html
http://crushslavery.com/2011/06/human-billboard.html
http://crushslavery.com/2011/04/it-all-boils-down-to-public-opinion.html

Only 5 Days To Go!

2011-06-26T00:11:00.005+10:00

It's only 5 more days till I start making a public spectacle of myself, and to be honest, I'm getting nervous!

1) I'm really not sure I can do 50 push-ups in one go.
2) I'm feeling rather alone in all this.
3) I'm rather afraid of making a fool of myself!

So it's time I reminded myself (and you!) why I'm doing this.

Did you know we have around 27 million slaves in the world? We’re not talking about the corporate ladder here, but children worked to death by age 14, picking 2-5% of the cocoa that goes into the chocolate you eat, women and girls as young as 6 sold into forced prostitution and internet porn businesses. The average price of a slave has fallen to US $90, and in some countries you can buy a slave for only $5. Enslaved children in Ghana are thrown overboard to untie fishing nets, with rocks tied to their ankles. Who cares if they don’t make it back up? It seems that people have become as expendable as paper cups.

And big business it is – In 2005, the International Labour Organization estimated a global annual profit of US$ 44.3 billion from all forms of slavery, and $33.9 billion from commercial sexual exploitation. Human trafficking is second only to drug trafficking as the most profitable illegal industry in the world.

Why? When you combine a profit margin of 70% or higher, virtually unlimited demand, and desperate poverty producing an unlimited supply of goods that virtually ship themselves “if you kick ‘em hard enough” - it’s a business model that many find simply too good to refuse.

Siddharth Kara’s 2006 research revealed that you can purchase a trafficked girl in Western Europe for an average of US $4 800 (a stunner of course, and already “broken-in” so you’ll get no trouble), then you can earn an average of US $10 570/month by renting out her body.

And this is not just restricted to a few undeveloped countries. UNODC reports that people are trafficked from 127 countries, to be exploited in 137 countries, including Australia.

As you can agree, this sickening social disease must stop. But the good news is that we can eradicate slavery in our lifetime, if we all do our part. I’m greatly encouraged by Dr Kevin Bales’ comprehensive 25-year plan outlined in his book “Ending Slavery”. There are a great many things we can do at a personal, business, community & government level. And how do we get the government to listen? Public opinion.

So that’s why I’m doing my 10 000 push-ups – to bring the issue to your awareness, and ask you to tell everyone you know about this crazy bloke who’s so upset about slavery that he’s out doing push-ups in Martin Place, 8:30am & 12:30pm every day for 100 days.

Please support me in spreading the word about this terrible injustice. Read more of this website, sign the petition, join the facebook cause, and take the pledge to invite all your friends. Let's abolish slavery together!

Dr Kevin Bales: The Price of a Human Life

2011-06-25T22:00:00.000+10:00

The world's leading expert on modern slavery, Dr Kevin Bales, on:

Jumping Shrimp: Becoming an Abolitionist - 3 min 51 sec
Defining Slavery - 2 min 33 sec
Decline in the Price of Human Life - 4 min 54 sec
Is the Answer in Chocolate? - 4 min 05 sec
A Moral Watershed - 2 min 49 sec
The Cost of Freedom - 3 min 12 sec

Treating it like a Business

2011-06-25T21:08:00.002+10:00

Just read the Boston Globe's Katie Bacon interview with Siddharth Kara, who wrote Sex Trafficking - Inside the Business of Modern Slavery, a game-changing book that focusses on the economic drivers behind slavery.

"Depending on which country you’re in, it takes 1.5 to 2 hours of work at that country’s per capita income to purchase 1 hour of sex from a sex slave. ... If we were to revert back to where prices were a decade ago, by putting more cost and risk into the system…you [would] see a massive decrease in demand, because you’ve priced out of the market those low-wage consumers — like day laborers, taxi drivers, and tuk tuk drivers — who are now in the market."

How do you go about disrupting the business?

"The minute [you] pull someone out of a sex slave condition, [you’ve] cut off all future cash flows. In terms of a sex slave it’s 10, 15, 20, transactions a day, a week, a month, year after year. You’ve got to pull people out, care for them…and then prosecute and convict effectively. That means several things: fast track courts, judicial review, and an economic penalty regime that makes it uneconomic to be in this business. If you start to alter the landscape, then the perception by the offender is: This business doesn’t pay. Right now the perception is: Huge profit, almost no risk, I’m there. This is about money: It’s not cruelty for the sake of cruelty. I’ve met traffickers. Some of them are just mundane opportunists."

Consumer Choice

2011-06-23T08:12:00.001+10:00

This cardigan I'm wearing - I paid a ridiculous $17 for it. How do I know that it wasn't knitted by slave labour?

In fact, the only product that I can say with any certainty is slave-free is Cadbury's plain milk chocolate, due to the Fair Trade logo. (Check this useful comparative report of three such logos.)

What I want to see is legislation that requires full disclosure of each product's supply chain, and mandatory labelling that ensures slave-produced goods are labelled as such, so that I as a consumer have the right to choose slavery-free products. For a while there I got all excited thinking we could have a central database of supply-chains integrated into a barcode-scanning iPhone app such as Free2Work.

But the problem is it's not as simple as that:

"WHY NOT BOYCOTT? In certain situations boycotting specific goods or countries can actually make the situation worse and undermine the economy of an already poor country. A boycott could hurt those in slavery-like conditions as well as those employers who are not exploiting their workers, and worsen the poverty that is one of the root causes of the problem. Support fair and ethical trade initiatives instead and use consumer power to encourage retailers and companies to move to the Fairtrade scheme."