Human Trafficking Awareness Month
An Estimated 40 million people around the world are being trafficked, and sex trafficking is one of the world’s fastest growing criminal industries.
Did you know? An Estimated 40 million people around the world are being trafficked, and sex trafficking is one of the world’s fastest growing criminal industries. This criminal industry generates $150 billion in illegal profit every year. Currently, human trafficking cases are being reported in every state in the US.
January is Human Trafficking Awareness Month and, in honor of that, I wanted to take the time to share the behind the scenes story of an amazing brand that’s dedicating their entire business to helping this fight…
Meet Lorin and Kyle Van Zandt…When Lorin was just fifteen years old, she began doing hair and quickly became passionate about beauty. She soon realized that beauty could be used to help people in need, and she began giving haircuts to the homeless and those in drug rehab centers. Recognizing the potential for this passion and profession to be a platform for good, she enrolled in cosmetology school in the evenings after long days of teaching 4th graders.
In 2013, she had the opportunity to work with victims of human trafficking for the first time. Many had just been rescued and were taken to safe places, and Lorin would to go meet them in secure locations. She gave manicures, pedicures and haircuts to women who didn’t believe they had worth after years of being forced into sex, sold and used as if they were nothing.
However, something as simple as a haircut led to something so big. These women began to believe something new about themselves. It was in those moments that the vision for MISSIO was born.
In 2017, Lorin and her husband Kyle started to conceptualize the plan for MISSIO. Kyle’s passion has also developed at a young age, working to address the orphan crisis in Romania back in 1989. Through his studies on poverty and transformational development, coupled with his wife’s experience in the beauty industry, inspired them to create MISSIO Hair, a movement of difference makers who use beauty to restore hope and fight human trafficking.
Today, the company provides stylist-designed and salon-tested hair products that serve as a vehicle to educate salons in victim identification, serve women at-risk and in recovery, and give to non-profit partners. Their double-bottom-line approach is an innovative and effective way the reach customers who want their purchases to matter while unlocking the potential of the beauty industry to directly fight human trafficking.
This January, I encourage you all to take a moment and read more about this issue and, if you’re looking for a way to get involved, please support this amazing brand making a real difference.
xoxo, Morgan