The 14th IACC conference in Bangkok, Thailand

What are participants going to do after they reach back home to fight against corruption?

Global Youth Anti-Corruption Network’s Joseph Mansilla just e-mailed me a link to the coolest visual tool to quantify links between corruption and other societal problems that I’ve seen this week. (Ricardo Valdes’ CPI+US Trafficking in Persons Report comes in close second).  Below is a still image from the highly interactive “Gapminder” graph that vividly depicts the positive correlation between poverty and corruption.  Click here to visit the interactive version.

So, what’s this all mean? Does corruption lead to poverty or does poverty cause corruption? Or, is the relationship more complicated than that?

That’s your cue: Let us know what YOU think by tweeting with the hashtag #14iacc.

- Jimmy

Today, I asked a question to some participants: Who inspired you to fight against corruption? I find their answers very inspiring. That’s why i am posting this video.

I look forward to read your view as well. Who inspired you to fight against corruption? You could leave your answer as comment.

“Corruption is the oil that fuels the human trafficking machine,” remarked Danish anti-human-trafficking NGO Hope Now’s head Ms. Anne Brandt Christensen during this morning’s workshop “Corruption and Human Trafficking: Unraveling the Undistinguishable for a Better Fight.”

She’s right.  Despite the fact that almost every country has passed laws against slavery, National Geographic recently reported that there are still over 27 million slaves today—toiling in locations as diverse as the brick kilns of South India and piaçaba plantations of Brazil, the brothels of Svey Pak and Sonagachi, and in the agricultural industries of California and Florida that put food on the plates of millions of Americans daily.

It’s impossible to explain this discrepancy without acknowledging the inextricable link between corruption and human trafficking, and that’s precisely what this morning’s panelists set out to do.

Photo: Ricardo Valdes discusses Peru’s efforts to empower and motivate government officials to take sex trafficking seriously

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