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A member of the British royal family will be hitting the airwaves with a new podcast! Queen Elizabeth ’s granddaughter Princess Eugenie and her friend Julia de Boinville are launching a podcast for The Anti-Slavery Collective this year.
The duo announced the news in the charity’s monthly newsletter with a statement (via HELLO! ) that read: “We were so excited to begin recording our long-awaited podcast this year, due to be released in 2022 so stay tuned!”
Eugenie and Julia launched The Anti-Slavery Collective in 2017. The pair revealed in an Instagram post last year how raising awareness for modern slavery became their mission. “We met on the bus on our way to a school trip and knew at once that this was just the beginning of a life-long friendship and adventure!” they wrote. “After following each other around the world, then to Newcastle University, and into our careers. In 2012, we went on a trip to Kolkata, India.”
The friends first became aware of modern slavery during their 2012 trip to India, where they visited an organisation called Women’s Interlink Foundation. Eugenie and Julia recalled, “We were shocked to discover the extent to which slavery still exists. In fact, there are more enslaved people today than at any other point in history and, at any one time, someone is being trafficked within a mile of where you live. We often associate slavery with chains and shackles, but modern slavery is a hidden crime that is often hard to detect.”
Eugenie and Julia spent the next five years educating themselves. “We became obsessive investigators and would visit anyone who could help us expand our knowledge; from policy makers, law enforcement agencies and academics, to NGOs, social workers and survivors,” they shared. “We asked everyone we encountered, ‘what can two young girls like us do to help?’ Without fail, the answer was always raise awareness. So this became our mission.”