Princess Eugenie is set to get married to Jack Brooksbank in just over a month, and while the royal bride-to-be has been busy preparing for her big day, she has also made time to give an important interview on a cause very close to her heart. The 29-year-old is taking after her mum Sarah Ferguson when it comes to humanitarian work, and opened up this week about her campaign to fight modern day slavery through initiative Antislavery Collective, along with her best friend Julia de Boinville, who went to the same university as the Princess and has been working with her for the past five years to make a positive change.
Princess Eugenie is fighting against modern slavery
Chatting on podcast Global GoalsCast, Eugenie spoke about how a trip to India with her mum Sarah Ferguson had inspired their work. She said: "Being best friends. Jules and I went with my mum to visit Calcutta, India, back in 2013 and we met this amazing woman called Inaudible who started the Women’s Interlink Foundation and she works to take trafficked girls and women off the streets and teaches them a vocational skill such as printing on fabrics, making these amazing handbags and scarves and dresses and just beautiful products. And Jules and I, that was the first time we ever really saw what modern slavery was and human trafficking and what really that is in the modern age."
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Everything you need to know about Princess Eugenie
Eugenie continued to say that after the trip they realised that slavery was still a problem across the world, and in the UK, so they returned to London to help set up the Key to Freedom fashion label with the help of Sarah and Prince Andrew, which is stocked in stores including Topshop. Over the past five years, Eugenie and Julia have been working hard to educate themselves and others on the problem, and have met many inspiring people along the way.
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Opening up about an encounter with a brave trafficking victim at a safe house which had a huge impact on the pair, Eugenie said: "We met this incredible girl who was trafficked by her next door neighbour in Manchester to a gang, and the gang did horrific things to her from setting her on fire to smashing bottles inside her, and from that she has had countless surgeries to re-correct that. And what's amazing about this story and what has stayed with Jules and I, is that she is the most incredible 21-year-old girl you will ever meet. She walked in and smiled and told her story with such courage and conviction, and sat there and just said that she wants to fight with us and keep us going."
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