Nomi Network, a non-profit organization that trains survivors of sexual slavery to produce products that will sell in the global market, was named after an 8-year-old survivor of sex trafficking in Cambodia. Nomi was so mentally disabled after her treatment as a sex slave, that she will spend the rest of her life in a rehabilitation home.
After meeting Nomi, two young women, Allisa Moore and former business and economics student Diana Mao, founded the Nomi Network in 2007. Mao had met other young Cambodia girls vulnerable to sex trafficking. She also “saw a lot of people actually turn trash into products and that’s a way that they generated income,” she said.
Using this concept, she joined Moore in forming the Nomi Network to create jobs for survivors of sex slavery. The network trains them and sends designers to work with them to create high quality products that will sell in the mainstream market. Some of the products include bags, wallets, iPad sleeves, cosmetic bags and computer cases.
The network’s goal is twofold: to empower and fully rehabilitate survivors, and to
educate consumers to use their dollars to buy products that are socially conscious.
A slave is a person forced to work under threat of violence with no pay beyond subsistence. There are 27 million slaves today, working in the sex trade, on farms, in coal and diamond mines, and at other forms of forced labor. Modern day slavery is a $32 billion industry.
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