Around the world, 2.2 million children are sold into sexual slavery annually, with more human slaves now than ever in history, according to Call + Response, a documentary about human trafficking.

Clips from the 2008 documentary were shown at the first meeting of Moral Voices, a new campus organization dedicated to raising awareness about social justice violations.

The social issue the group will address this year is human trafficking, according to Moral Voices co-chairwoman and College sophomore Jordan Sale.

Philadelphia is the third most active human trafficking city in the U.S., but “no one really knows,” Sale said.

Moral Voices’ first event, a full screening of Call + Response, will take place on Feb. 1.

The group was founded with the largest student grant Hillel has ever received, according to Sale.

Philanthropist Anne Heyman first developed the Moral Voices initiative at Tufts University, where the group has addressed issues such as genocide and environmental justice.

When Heyman came to Penn in Oct. and spoke about Moral Voices at Tufts, “the model was so cool that a couple of us got together and decided that this would be a really neat program to bring to Penn,” Sale said.

“There isn’t really something like this here, and I felt that a lot of people want to be informed [about social justice issues],” she added, explaining that there was not yet a forum available for discussion.

A steering committee was then put together, which applied for a grant from Heyman’s foundation to start a Penn branch of Moral Voices. The group was notified at the end of December that it had received the grant.

“Because it’s a year-long initiative, we’re able to approach it from a lot of different angles ... the idea is that we’re trying to appeal to a really wide cross section of people on campus,” Moral Voices co-chairwoman and College junior Rachel Cohen said.

Moral Voices is comprised of various sub-committees that have a variety of objectives for the year.

One of the committees will bring New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof to speak at Penn in March.

“He’s been deemed the moral conscience of his generation and he’s been really important in spreading awareness about this issue,” committee chair and College sophomore Caroline Kassie said at the meeting.

A lobbying committee will also organize a trip to Washington, D.C. and lobby senators and representatives who are on the fence about three bills regarding trafficking, violence against women and opportunities for women.

Sale hopes that students who attend the events walk away “having learned something and having been inspired ... and more aware of something awful that happens all the time.”