Does your company’s real estate fight modern slavery?

Freedom Place office development seeking anchor tenant.

She was furious. Her eyes bore a combination of pain, sorrow, and anger, recalls Matt Friedman during his interview with a 15-year old victim named Gita in Nepal. Her gut-wrenching testimonial was filled with deception, rape, torture, murder, disease – too gruesome to publish. Yet she was angry at Matt, yes, even angry with us.

“Where were you?” she accused. “Where were you when I was in that terrible brothel? I sat in that brothel every day waiting for someone to come and save me. I knew that everything happening around me was illegal and wrong. I went to school until I was 12. I knew it was slavery. Where were you and everyone else when I needed you?” She paused and took a few deep breaths. Tears began to fall from her face. [Matthew S. Friedman, “Where Were You?”]

It’s up to us to join the fight against modern slavery. “If I were alive in 1800s, I'd like to think I would be involved in the abolitionist movement,” says Paul Moore, a real estate philanthropist and member of the Freedom Place Board of Trustees. “If I were alive in the 1950s and 60s, I'd want to believe I'd be fighting for civil rights. So I can't just sit back and know that this is happening on our watch and not do anything about it.”

Freedom Place is a major office building development, unique in that its Directors are strategically using this Class-A, amenity-rich corporate office in the battle to eradicate global human trafficking. Founder & CEO Ben Briggs aims to give 100% of his profits to the cause, while leveraging the building’s public space to host community events & build awareness of the issue.

Corporate tenants will not only enjoy prime Class A office space in a live-work-play environment, but they will thrive with heightened publicity in a space that enhances their corporate social responsibility (CSR) image. Employees will be inspired & engaged as they daily participate in the site’s purposeful community.

The Freedom Place team is actively seeking corporate partners to join as tenants in the project. Anchor tenants seeking at least 100,000-500,000 square feet of space would be particularly key allies to help cement success for this major project to end modern slavery. Does your company’s real estate fight modern slavery?