FROM DARKNESS TO DIGNITY: HOW ETHICAL FASHION UPLIFTS WOMEN FROM TRAFFICKING
By: Erica Commisso
It is hard to believe that in the twenty-first century we are still battling such inhumane issues around the world such as human exploitation and trafficking. It takes leadership and devotion to create change.
Aruna is an athleisure brand that creates bags, headbands and totes for active women. They free, employ and empower those from human trafficking. The Aruna Project was born when its founder, Ryan Berg, was headed overseas for work. While in the airport, Berg saw a news report detailing the rescue of 12 minors from a brothel. He’d never heard of sex trafficking before and the story struck him deeply - especially because he soon learned the very place he was travelling to was a hotbed for human trafficking. He knew he had to help however he could.
Image Courtesy of Aruna Project
"After I finished my work, I found a particular area known to sell young women for sex. I was not prepared. I entered the brothel. The smell of stale urine, the rats running around and the sound of abuse were overwhelming,” Berg remembers. “As I climbed the stairs and went down the hallways I soon saw closet-sized rooms with nothing more than mattresses and pull curtains and young women available for purchase. It was devastating. The pimps soon learned that I was not there for sex and ‘escorted’ me out."
Upon returning to the United States, Berg and his wife, April, looked into what they could do to help, even relocating their own three children to the area. The pair interviewed government workers, nonprofit leaders and women in the area, probing to simply understand the root of the problem, which companies offered a sustainable and effective solution and, most importantly, how they could help.
The result was Aruna Project, a premium athleisure bag and accessories brand combining the best of nonprofit services and solutions to create lifelong freedom for trafficking victims and survivors through employment supported by holistic care. The Cincinnati, Ohio-based company actively works to free, employ and empower trafficking victims in both South Asia and the United States.
Aruna Project’s work thus far has seen staggering success: Re-trafficking rates have been reported by some NGOs to be as high as 75%, meaning only one in four women freed, or 25%, will stay free. However, through Aruna's unique freedom process, the brand is operating at an 86% success rate of sustained freedom.
Image Courtesy of Aruna Project
In the United States, Aruna’s non-profit mobilizes thousands of Americans to Run for Her Freedom in Aruna Runs. In running for a specific exploited woman by name, Aruna Run participants raise awareness of her need and raise money to help bring and sustain her freedom. Those funds are used in Aruna Outreach Centers in the heart of the brothel systems to help free trafficking victims. The women then enter the Aruna Apprenticeship Program, a paid program providing transitional housing, trauma counseling, skill and trade development and future employment opportunities in Aruna’s Freedom Business and Freedom Business partners.
In Aruna’s Freedom Business in South Asia, women freed from human trafficking through Outreach Centers are offered employment in an environment supported by holistic care. Each artisan has access to stage two transitional housing moving to independent living. She is also given the tools to rebuild her life, her way: She earns a competitive wage, healthcare, retirement savings and also receives ongoing trauma counseling.
Of course, the women help produce Aruna’s products, which are eco-friendly and use recycled materials that compete in the American open market. The bags and accessories themselves are also thoughtfully designed, intended to meet what a consumer needs and compete with what’s currently on the market with a better solution. Ideas are developed by the design team in the United States with heavy involvement from survivors throughout the process.
Image Courtesy of Aruna Project
“Once an idea has moved from flat sketches to a tech pack, the international team is involved again in naming the product after a survivor who will be involved in production,” Berg says, noting that everything Aruna produces is named after a survivor. “Samples are produced and are worked through a wear test process, then more iterations of sampling are completed implementing the wear test feedback in conjunction with the international team. Once a final pre-production sample is approved, the survivors, having already been involved in the process, are fully trained in production.”
Through Aruna, survivors are also offered leadership opportunities in all aspects of the brand, from production to care teams to training teams, all based on interest and skill. This work and its rewards, Berg says, go beyond the woman herself.
“Through the impact of one freed woman, we see an almost four-time impact on those associated with her. Through her employment with Aruna, she is able to ensure her child or children, some of whom may have been born in the brothels, are no longer sleeping under the bed where she is abused. Instead, through her freedom and employment, that child is now in a good school with an entirely new future ahead of her. That type of impact extends to siblings and relatives in the village no longer at risk of being trafficked because of the shared financial impact of the survivor's employment.” - Berg
To date, Aruna has employed over 590 artisans in the United States and internationally, and has offered care to over 7,000 women in the brothel systems. Because 100% of the profits from sales go directly into the brand, Berg hopes expansion will help further his mission.
“We envision a day when every woman is free to choose her own adventure,” he says. “To accomplish that, we are working to develop Aruna's diverse and practical product lineup and scale it so that Aruna becomes an international brand associated with premium athleisure products that create lifelong freedom.”