LONDON (AP) – Julia Ormond appealed to police agencies worldwide Monday to share information and resources in hopes of combating human trafficking.
The 42-year-old British actress, who co-starred with Harrison Ford in 1995’s “Sabrina,” spoke in London to help publicize a new U.N. campaign to combat 21st-century slave trade.
The initiative came a day after the 200th anniversary of the passage of Britain’s anti-slavery law. The goal is to improve enforcement of a 2003 U.N. treaty against human trafficking _ a crime Ormond described as being largely hidden.
“What we do know is that the statistics are the tip of the iceberg,” she told The Associated Press.
The campaign will improve coordination between governments and organizations that work to fight the problem, said Eva Biaudet, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s special representative on combating trafficking in human beings.
Efforts to fight human trafficking have failed to win broad support because of the difficulties in counting the number of victims, many of whom are unable to seek help, Biaudet said.
“It’s sometimes an excuse that `we don’t have the data, so we can’t do anything about it,'” Biaudet said.