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ABLE Collective - editorial shoot - Aaron Cohen

More about Aaron, his work in human trafficking and how you can help here.

22 Apr 2013

ABLE Collective - editorial shoot - Aaron Cohen

“Aaron Cohen is an intimidating guy. He’s 6’5”, with long, deep black hair and his face shows the years of travel, drug abuse and danger that you’d expect from someone with his resume. All this, however, comes before speaking to him.

Aaron Cohen is a modern day abolitionist - he travels abroad, pretends to be a sex tourist, and rescues women as young as eight from bondage and forced prostitution. His job is like an excursion through a Pasolini film, experiencing the darkest side of humanity for the chance to redeem a few young and shattered lives. It’s a demoralizing scene that shatters any fantasy we may have held that slavery no longer exists in the world.

Then we’re back in the ‘80s and get a glimpse into the man who would become the slave hunter. His musical interests endeared him to Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Ferrell in 1987. The two were close friends and Cohen was integral in the creation of the Lollapalooza festival as well as right hand to Ferrell. It wasn’t long, however, before Cohen’s continuing education and spirituality influenced his next move: relieving the debt of the Earth’s poorest citizens. With his influence, Farrell, Bono, Bob Geldof, and other musicians were supporting the Jubilee 2000 Coalition, a group that called for a complete cancellation of Third World Debt by the year 2000. This Drop The Debt campaign became Cohen’s link to philanthropy, and changed his world forever.

Once a rock and roll sidekick, Cohen is now traveling the globe to help some of the world’s most unfortunate. His nonprofit organization, Abolish Slavery, seeks to completely end the illegal human trafficking trade worldwide. Cohen’s book pulls no punches. It forces you to come to terms with modern-day slavery and see that no country, not even the United States, gets a pass on this issue. Upwards of 15,000 people are trafficked into the U.S. every year and about 50% of these are children, forced into slave labor or sexual coercion.

(Via - Cause Cast)

12 Apr 2013