Dozens of respected global leaders from the world’s of business, law, arts, design, media and human resources recently convened with Not For Sale for a serious brainstorming session at the Montara Circle Amsterdam.

The Montara Circle is an innovative think-tank summit that challenges powerful individuals to work together to develop real solutions to prevent vulnerable communities from exploitive practices, and also create better futures for survivors through new employment opportunities.

As 70 percent of prostituted women in Europe come from Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, the groundbreaking event was organized to develop a tangible solution to stop trafficking of young girls from Romania into the Netherlands sex industry.

Poverty, lack of job opportunities, corruption, low status for women and domestic violence are all push factors that lead to many young women’s emigration from Romania. In the hope of finding a better life and making more money elsewhere, many of them fall into the hands of traffickers where their dreams instantly turn into nightmares.

After presenting this specific problem, Not For Sale encouraged those present at the Montara Circle Amsterdam to use their own areas of expertise to help construct a real solution.

As Not For Sale Romania already owns a small farmhouse and runs a job training facility, it was decided to utilize these existing resources as the basis for the solution.

Not For Sale is pleased to confirm that during the intense 24-hour period, attendees developed an exciting new idea for organic produce and products that will be grown at the farmhouse, giving new futures to the survivors and new opportunities to vulnerable communities nearby.
Ronald Van Zetten, CEO of retail giant HEMA with more than 550 stores in the Netherlands, Luxembourg and France, has committed to evaluate products for distribution through their stores.

A further solution in development for Amsterdam is the creation of a catering school that will provide professional training to survivors. This operation will start by providing hot meals for the women working in the windows in Amsterdam.

The new business ventures will provide rehabilitation, job training, marketing and sales for survivors, and the profit will go back to the workers and the farm.

Generous Montara Circle attendees donated the $50,000 needed to expand Not For Sale Romania’s existing farmhouse enterprise, scale the size and scope of its current agricultural center, and execute relationships with distributors in Western Europe.

This check was presented to Not For Sale Romania at the 2011 Global Forum on Human Trafficking on October 21-22, in Silicon Valley, California.

Funding for the catering business has yet to be raised.

A further $20,000 dollars was raised for Not For Sale Netherlands to create a multi-media prevention program for schools in Eastern Europe, which will begin in early 2012.

Speaking about the hugely successful event, Mark Wexler, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Not For Sale said: “Not For Sale is looking forward to sharing more details about this social enterprise and prevention program in the near future. These are only some examples of the solutions that were developed at the Montara Circle Amsterdam. Many more were discussed and will start rolling out soon. When bright minds work together, the outcome is great.”