La Strada Wins MTV Europe's 2004 "Free Your Mind Award"

MTV NETWORKS EUROPE

On November 18, at the MTV Europe Music Awards ceremony in Rome, Global Fund for Women grantee La Strada Network, received the 2004 "Free Your Mind" award for the organization's dedication to the fight against the trafficking of women and girls in Europe; the event launched a year long MTV Europe campaign, entitled EXIT, to increase awareness and prevention of trafficking.

Grantee: La Strada, Czech Republic & Poland

La Strada—Network for the Prevention of Trafficking of Women in Central and Eastern Europe Wins The 'Free Your Mind' Award at the Mtv Europe Music Awards 2004

Sex Trafficking To Be the Focus af a Year Long Awareness Campaign across Mtv Networks Europe

This year's MTV Europe 'Free Your Mind' Award has been awarded to La Strada—an organisation dedicated to the fight against the trafficking of women in Europe. The award was accepted by Alicia Keys on behalf of La Strada at the MTV Europe Music Awards, held at Tor Di Valle, Rome on 18 November 2004.

With the break up of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and the wars in the former Yugoslavia, the resulting political and economic instability created an environment that was ripe for exploitation by criminals. Organised criminals began preying on young women from these countries who were wishing to find work in Western Europe. Through fraud and deception, they lured these women into accepting false study or job opportunities before forcing them into prostitution. Coupled with the rise in demand in the Western European sex industry, sex trafficking has become an ever-growing tragedy: some estimates state that as many as 500,000 girls and women are trafficked each year for sexual exploitation in Europe.

La Strada is a grassroots organisation whose aims are to provide young women with crucial prevention information whilst providing psychological, medical and social help—enabling them to begin their lives again. La Strada aims to make the trafficking of women more visible to authorities, the media and the general public and aims to educate women and girls about the dangers of trafficking. La Strada's goals are met through a multi-disciplinary approach of information and lobbying, prevention and education and social assistance.

La Strada was established in 1995 through a bilateral exchange between the Dutch Foundation Against Trafficking in Women, and two independent women's rights organizations in Poland and the Czech Republic. Since then, the organisation has grown to include groups in nine European countries—Netherlands, Poland, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Moldova, and Macedonia.

Commented Brent Hansen, President & Chief Executive, MTV Networks Europe: "Highlighting issues facing Europe's youth is at the core of what MTV is about. La Strada's vitally important work ensures the issue of trafficking is kept in the public eye—and that the women and girls affected gain access to vital help and information. In addition to the presentation of the Free Your Mind Award to La Strada, sex trafficking will be the focus of a year-long awareness campaign, entitled EXIT, that is set to run across MTV Networks Europe. We hope that, by putting MTV's full network-wide weight behind this issue, we will help to make a real difference."

MTV's EXIT, a multi-platform campaign to increase awareness and prevention of sex trafficking in Europe will launch with a 14 language youth website (mtvexit.org) which will go live simultaneous to the presentation of the Free Your Mind Award on 18 November. This will be followed by awareness and prevention programming that will premiere across MTV Networks Europe from January 2005. This programming will be provided rights free to broadcasters around the world, anti-trafficking organisations and schools. MTV Exit is supported by Sida, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.

The 'Free Your Mind' Award is based upon the ideals of MTV's global 'Free Your Mind' Campaign, which aims to highlight humanitarian issues and encourage freedom from all kinds of intolerance and prejudice. The award is intended for any individual or organisation that exemplifies the ideals of MTV's campaign.

Previous winners include: Aung San Suu Kyi—Burma's democratically elected leader and Nobel Peace laureate (2003), FARE—Football Against Racism in Europe (2002), TAC—Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) of South Africa, a group doing extraordinary work around HIV/AIDS (2001), OTPOR—a grassroots student pressure movement founded in 1998 to counter Slobodan Milosevic's oppressive regime (2000), Bono (1999), Serbian Independent Radio Station B92 (1998), The Landmine Survivors' Network (1997), The Buddies and Carers of Europe (1996), Greenpeace (1995), and Amnesty International (1994).

The MTV Europe Music Awards, which aired to a potential worldwide audience of more than 1 billion people, were sponsored by Replay Blue Jeans, L'Oreal Paris Studio Line, Hewlett Packard and Foot Locker.

MTV Networks Europe
ROME, November 8, 2004