As a part of the effort by the Holmes Cultural Diversity Center to bring awareness to modern-day slavery, the Student Association at Mississippi State University is hosting Stand for Freedom on March 6 at 3 p.m.
At the Stand for Freedom event, MSU students will stand for 27 hours in honor of the 27 million people in slavery all around the world.
Amina Bahammou, Director of Special Events for SA cabinet and sophomore human sciences and family development major, said she decided to bring this nation-wide event to MSU because after hearing about modern-day slavery at a Passion conference, she became enthusiastic about bringing an end to this crime.
Participants are asked to donate $10 to the Freedom Campaign to end modern-day slavery. The goal is to raise $2,700 in honor of the 27 million slaves.
During the night, there will be games, music and speakers as entertainment for people standing for this cause. Then as classes are starting, the event will be moved to the Drill Field and around campus. Participants will be wearing their T-shirts and giving out information on modern-day slavery.
Maribeth Barfield, junior biochemistry major, is also helping plan this event. She said she encouraged students to get involved because so many people do not know about this crime.
“I was just shocked about the numbers and statistics about human trafficking because I had no idea. Stand for Freedom is a lot about bringing awareness to the fact that this is happening. I think that a lot more people would care if they knew,” Barfield said.
Bahammou said the goal of this event is to raise awareness for modern-day slavery because there are more slaves now than there ever have been in history.
“I feel like people do not really acknowledge it, and if they do, they think it is in other countries, but it’s right here in our own backyard,” Bahammou said.
Sam Diarbakerly, sophomore marketing, professional golf management major, became active with Stand for Freedom through the Student Association. He said he wanted to take a stand against human trafficking because he realized how lucky he was to be born in a free country and how lucky he was that he was not forced into this slavery.
Diarbakerly said he hopes the Stand for Freedom will make people think about how common modern-day slavery is around the world.
“I think my generation has grown really insensitive to horrors like this around the world, it is important to think about ‘What if I was a slave?’ This is a real world problem; we all need to come together to end it,” Diarbakerly said.