Hollywood Actress Speaks at Global Classrooms Model UN Conference

U.N. Ambassador Calls for End to Slavery

Julia Ormond serves as the keynote speaker at USC’s two-day United Nations conference attended by hundreds of students.

By James Grant
06/10/08

Ormond: “May the next generation say ‘let us be the one that is going to be proactive in creating peace.’ ”

United Nations Goodwill Ambassador and actress Julia Ormond recently challenged 800 high school and middle school students gathered at USC to use their influence to end the scourge of human slavery.

“There are more people enslaved today than at any other time in our history,” she told the audience. “The selling of children is the fastest-growing global crime.”

An estimated 27 million people around the world today live in conditions that qualify as slavery, she said.

The unfortunate victims include boys forced to dive into African lakes to untangle fishing nets, girls sold into prostitution in Asia and the Americas, and workers of all ages confined to harsh conditions in various agricultural and production operations around the globe.

“There is an intimate link between poverty and crime,” Ormond said. “Our morality is often stripped from us by poverty.”

Ormond’s comments came at the kickoff of the United Nations Association’s Pacific Rim International Model United Nations conference, which attracted about 800 students from Southern California, Hong Kong and Japan.

During the two-day conference, the students took on roles as global diplomats, seeking to find solutions to a variety of economic and development topics – including eradication of illicit drug crops and other criminal activities.

Ormond challenged the diplomat/students to redouble their efforts to promote conditions that would help take away the rewards of human trafficking. “We’ve spent much of history going to war against one another,” she said. “May the next generation say ‘let us be the one that is going to be proactive in creating peace.’ ” read more...