This 22-year-old started a fashion line to fight human trafficking.
Noor Tagouri has always been one for ambitious goals. This is no different.
Human trafficking is a global problem affecting thousands of men, women, and children each year.
Trafficking is, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the illegal transportation of a person (an abduction, basically) — most often for the purposes of nonconsensual sex work or forced labor. Every year, thousands of individuals are tragically torn from their families, falling victim to this awful act.
Playing cards featuring the faces of missing Chinese children and suspected victims of human trafficking. Photo by China Photos/Getty Images.
While there's lots of attention brought to the issue in the form of traditional fundraisers and ad campaigns, a 22-year-old journalist had a different idea.
Noor Tagouri is best known for her presence on social media where she has a following of more than 200,000 people with the goal of becoming the first hijabi news anchor in America. But now, in the name of drawing attention to human trafficking, she's taken on a new role: fashion mogul.
Tagouri teamed up with Adam Khafif at Lis'n Up Clothing (LSNP) to create a fashion line that both informs the public and helps fund the fight against human trafficking. They call it "The Noor Effect."
Image via Business Insider.
The design features the word "Girl" crossed out and backwards in a nod to one of Tagouri's favorite artists.
The idea was inspired by a quote from artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, and it's pretty genius.
Image via Business Insider.
Basquiat's artwork is known for the distortion of the words and images he paints. It's the type of art you could stare at for hours at a time and still miss something that's staring you right in the face.
That's how Tagouri feels we too often treat human trafficking.
Tagouri and Khafif are donating half of all proceeds to Project Futures, an anti-human trafficking charity.
Project Futures is a charity whose goal is to help fund prevention efforts, offer support services, and empower victims of trafficking. They've been working at it for more than five years, raising more than $2 million in the process. With any luck, Tagouri will help them go even further in pushing their goal of putting an end to human trafficking.
Next time you see an obscured word, take a moment to really look at it. Maybe there's an important message hiding in plain sight.
Image via Business Insider.