Interview: Eleanor Roosevelt on Human Trafficking

Each week, I will be bringing you a new interview with a formerly-active activist or abolitionist, that is, someone now deceased.  I'll be talking to the men and women who paved the way for the abolitionists of today and getting their thoughts on the problems and solutions of modern-day slavery.  How do I contact not just the dead, but the famous and dead?  Every good blogger must have her secrets!

This week... Eleanor Roosevelt

How's the afterlife treating you?

I thought life was great, but the afterlife sure beats it.

For those non-biography readers out there, how about you tell me a little about yourself.

I was the First Lady of the United States during most of the Great Depression.  Later, I became an Ambassador to the UN and a staunch advocate for human rights throughout the world.  Some credit my work with President Kennedy in the 1960s as the beginning of the second wave of feminism. 

What do you think is the biggest problem in the modern-day abolitionist movement?

Women have not properly identified abolition as a women's issue, which it is, since it overwhelmingly affects women more than men.  We must identify human trafficking as a crime which prevents women from reaching true freedom and equality in society.  As long as women are being bought and sold as commodities, we will never reach our full humanity.

If you were alive, what would you do to fight slavery?

I would promote an international agenda of human rights which focuses on the right of women to be free from slavery and identifies human trafficking as a women's issue.

Any last thoughts for our readers?

A woman is like a tea bag- you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.  Rise to the tests you face, ladies.