CIW receives Presidential Medal for Extraordinary Efforts in Combatting Modern-Day Slavery at White House Forum! Secretary of State John Kerry announces the presentation of the 2014 Presidential Medal for Extraordinary Efforts to Combat Human Trafficking in Persons to the CIW at yesterday’s White House Forum on Human Trafficking. The citation reads: “For its extraordinary efforts to combat human trafficking by pioneering the Fair Food Program, empowering agricultural workers, and leveraging market forces and consumer awareness to promote supply chain transparency and eradicate modern slavery on participating farms, we award this Presidential Medal.” Sec. Kerry: “This is an extraordinary accomplishment, and reminds all of us not just of the work that we have to do, but that dedicated individuals, like those here with us today from the Coalition, can strike out against injustice, break down barriers, and make a world of difference.” Yesterday was a landmark day in the history of CIW’s fight for farm labor justice. Twenty years ago, workers rose up in the fields and in the dusty streets of a dirt-poor town by the strange name of Immokalee to demand an end to the systematic violation of their fundamental human rights.  The CIW was born in those streets, and today, twenty years later, through the unrelenting struggle and sacrifice of tens of thousands of workers and consumers, the CIW’s successful efforts have remade an industry, and the model of worker-driven social responsibility forged in that battle stands as a beacon of hope for many, many more workers trapped in poverty and exploitation at the bottom of vast corporate supply chains around the world. And so yesterday, the CIW’s efforts, born in a forgotten community’s desperate struggle for survival, were celebrated in the halls of power of the highest office of the land. Secretary of State John Kerry’s words in presenting the medal were eloquent, and so we have included here an extended excerpt from his remarks: “… So if you dig deeper, you begin to see that modern slavery does not exist in a vacuum. It’s connected to many of our other foreign policy concerns, from environmental sustainability, to advancing the lives of women and girls, to combatting transnational organized crime. Wherever we find poverty and lack of opportunity, wherever rule of law is weak, wherever corruption is most ingrained, and where minorities are abused, where populations cannot count on the protections of government or rule of law, we find not just vulnerability to trafficking but zones of impunity where traffickers can prey on their victims...