Ashleigh Chapman, president and CEO of the Alliance for Freedom, Restoration and Justice
(AFRJ), was one of 60 women nationwide recently honored as part of USA Today’s Women
of the Year. Chapman was recognized for her efforts against human trafficking in Wyoming
and nationwide. She has multiple businesses, including AFRJ, housed in UW’s IMPACT
307 business incubator. (Ashleigh Chapman Photo)
For her continued efforts against human trafficking in Wyoming and nationwide, Ashleigh
Chapman was recently recognized by USA Today as one of its “Women of the Year.”
Chapman, who has multiple businesses housed in the University of Wyoming’s IMPACT
307 business incubator, was one of 60 women bestowed the honor for having made a significant
impact across the country. Women from 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto
Rico, as well as 12 women recognized nationally, made up the list, which was released
March 14. Four of the women on the list recognized nationally also were honored for
their individual states. For information on this year’s honorees, go to https://www.usatoday.com/storytelling/grid/women-of-the-year-2022/.
“It’s a team award, for sure,” Chapman says of the recognition. “We have so many amazing
women (and men!) who make up our leadership teams. And it’s truly an honor for all
of the incredibly hard work we have all been doing for so many years now -- over 20
for me!”
For the past 21 years, Chapman has worked solely on issues of human trafficking and
protecting vulnerable populations.
The Alliance for Freedom, Restoration and Justice (AFRJ) has been a UW business incubator client since April 2019. The AFRJ launched
the Every Day Heroes Challenge in January 2020. The challenge is designed to engage everyday people to become heroes
against human trafficking by completing a one-hour online course.
The campaign seeks to get 1 million people to take the free course and earn their
online Human Trafficking Awareness badge so citizens can move from awareness to action.
Thus far, more than 4,500 learners in 47 states and eight countries have taken the
course.
The course was set up so people could spot signs of trafficking every day -- whether
in their local communities or while traveling. Signs to look for are based on what
type of trafficking is taking place; what individual is being trafficked; and how
citizens are likely to interact with potential victims or perpetrators.
Altus Solutions Inc., also set up in the incubator, is a business that powers solutions that can not only
help accelerate the anti-trafficking movement, but also could fund the nonprofit side
of her business. Chapman says she is grateful to the leadership of IMPACT 307 in helping
Altus scale up the company’s solutions, including Justice U, its education solution, and Engage Together, its community-strengthening solution, for communities that need these programs.
“We are still in the process of seeking and securing impact investments and, in the
meantime, we are continuing to support their implementation in states, most recently
Wyoming, and countries around the world,” she says.
Engage Together just completed a comprehensive assessment of current efforts across
the entire state of Wyoming to end and prevent human trafficking for the Human Trafficking
Task Force. All of the reports -- including ways every community can help -- are available
on the Attorney General’s Division of Victim Services website at https://dvs.wyo.gov/human-trafficking-task-force.
Before founding the AFRJ and Altus, Chapman served as the co-founder and director
of the Center for Global Justice at Regent University School of Law in Virginia; the
director of a nonprofit serving thousands of at-risk youths in Tennessee; a children’s
pastor; and a court-appointed special advocate for children in foster care.
In January 2021 and 2022, Chapman was one of the primary speakers invited to a U.S.
Chamber of Commerce Zoom event that focused on the subject of eradicating human trafficking
and how businesses can be part of the solution. Chapman also is the founder of Freedom Council, a global assembly of business leaders dedicated to this cause. January is designated
as National Human Trafficking Awareness Month in the United States.
Chapman hopes this national recognition will shine an even brighter light on awareness
of human trafficking and force people into action against the scourge, which is estimated,
as of 2019, to be a $150 billion business annually and involves roughly 40 million
people trafficked worldwide, with more than 325,000 victims in the U.S.
“I certainly hope so. And particularly, I hope it does more than raise awareness of
human trafficking. I hope it inspires people to act,” she says. “It’s not enough for
each of us to be generally aware that human trafficking is happening in our world
today. We need to understand how each of us can be part of the solution, especially
in our local communities. And that’s what so many of our solutions are created to
do -- to equip each person and every community to join the fight.”
For more information, email Chapman at Ashleigh@altusnow.com.
For Wyoming statistics on the National Human Trafficking Hotline, go here.
