Senior year of High School, myself and three of my friends had to do an ethics project. Our topic?
Human Trafficking.
Yeah, I know who really knows anything about it? It doesn't happen, well maybe it does, but definitely not in
The Land of the Free. I'm not sure any of the four of us knew what we were getting into.
Two weeks later we gave a two hour presentation on the topic, complete with a slide show, handouts, and a guest speaker from
World Relief. The class was captivated and the teachers were impressed. We got the only
A they have EVER given on an Ethics Project.
Does it end there? I really don't think it's possible for me to look at pictures like this:
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| Children are abused in Pedophile Rings |
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| Children are forced to work in poor conditions with little or no pay |
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| Women are forced to work in poor conditions for little or no pay, and are also sexually exploited |
and not expect my life to change. But really, what can I do? I'm just a twenty something girl. Trying to live my life, follow my dreams.... what dreams I know of...and trying to follow what God wants me to do.
CNN is currently doing a
Freedom Project. This is one of the articles they posted.
Abolishing sex slavery by helping one girl at a time
By Jim Kavanagh, CNN
Atlanta, Georgia (CNN) - When Christine Caine talks about human trafficking, she speaks without punctuation, the words and sentences and paragraphs pouring out in a rushing stream that reflects the Australian's passion for rescuing victims and eradicating the crime.
In 2007, Caine, a globe-trotting evangelist and motivational speaker, was walking through the airport in Thessaloniki, Greece, and saw numerous handmade posters with pictures of young women who had disappeared.
"I thought, 'How could you have so many kids missing? How could this be possible?'" she told CNN.
And then someone clued her in: These girls were victims of human trafficking.
"I thought, 'Human trafficking? That doesn't happen, that's ridiculous,'" she said. "Then I went online and did some research, and I was stunned."
Estimates of slave numbers today range from about 10 million to 30 million, according to policymakers, activists, journalists and scholars. (Related: The challenges of counting a hidden population)
And according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 79% of human trafficking is sexual exploitation.
Caine recounted witness reports of girls being placed on platforms and sold in auctions reminiscent of the slave trade in the U.S. in the 18th and 19th centuries.
"No human being has the right to buy and sell another human being," she said. "People are not commodities for sale."
In some Greek brothels, Caine said, trafficking victims who get pregnant are smuggled across the border to Bulgaria, where they give birth and the babies are sold into pedophile rings.
"You begin to wonder: How depraved can humanity get?" she said.
But rather than sink into despair, Caine, 44, decided to do something about it.
In 2008 she founded
The A21 Campaign, which focuses on sex trafficking in southeastern Europe. The name derives from the goal of "abolishing injustice" in the 21st century. The task seems overwhelming, but the focus is on helping one victim at a time, Caine said.
"The kind of girls we work with are girls that are taken, stolen, brutally raped and then often sold into brothels and forced to service up to 35 or 40 men a day," she said. "They are sold for money, and it's slavery. It's modern-day slavery."
'Why didn't you come sooner?'
She related the ghastly story of a young woman from eastern Russia who was one of 60 girls and women duped by a fake employment agency into signing up for non-existent jobs in the Greek islands.
They were crammed into a shipping container, where half of them died en route to Turkey. The survivors were locked in apartments, where men in police uniforms raped them for days.
The victims were put on tiny boats to take them to Greece, but when the Greek coast guard approached, the traffickers tossed most of the women overboard “like excess baggage,” Caine said. They all drowned, she said.
The traffickers got away with five women, who were forced to work in an Athens brothel. Acting on a tip, Greek authorities raided the brothel and rescued the women.
The Russian woman was brought to The A21 Campaign's shelter the next day. She didn't trust Caine or the staff, thinking they, too, might be slick-talking traffickers. She asked why Caine had gotten involved, and Caine told her how the posters in the airport had prompted her to action.
"I'll never forget how she looked at me and, with tears streaming down her face, she said to me, 'If what you are telling me is true, if you really care about us, then why didn't you come sooner?'" Caine said. She could offer no good answer.
The A21 Campaign has shelters and transition houses in Greece and Ukraine, and plans to open a shelter in Bulgaria, Caine said. Each shelter can accommodate 12 victims, and each house can support a total of 12 victims and staff.
The facilities have a "post-trauma restoration process" in which victims receive medical and psychological care, legal assistance, and vocational and life-skills training aimed at keeping them from being re-trafficked or falling back into the sex trade for lack of options, Caine said.
"I really believe there is a life beyond everyone's past, and there is a hope and a future. And if you commit to the process of restoration, you can overcome the obstacles and hurdles and the pain and the suffering and be made whole," she said.
Although Caine is a prominent preacher with an Australian megachurch, The A21 Campaign is not just for Christians, and the shelter staff doesn't try to convert trafficking victims, she noted.
While few people would publicly endorse human trafficking, we assent to exploitation every day by our consumer choices, Caine said.
"It happens when the world closes their eyes and pretends something isn't happening," she said. “We want a whole lot of goods and services and we don't really want to pay, but it's got to come from somewhere.”
Many products are cheap because they’re made by 5-year-old children working 19-hour days for no pay, she said.
"When you no longer care about the process of how something gets to you but you just want the end result, then you close your eyes to what's going on."
Awareness at the local level
The A21 Campaign has almost 16,000 followers on Twitter, and its Facebook cause has more than 46,000 members. The campaign's website lists 21 things individuals can do to fight trafficking and aid victims. These include buying fair-trade products, volunteering, lobbying politicians, and organizing fundraisers and awareness groups.
One such group is Louisiana State University's Tigers Against Trafficking.
The group's first awareness and fund-raising event was a 5K run; the group's members would have been happy if 10 people had registered but were astonished when it ballooned to 360 participants, said LSU fourth-year law student Natalie LaBorde, who co-founded TAT in 2009.
That first effort raised $10,000 for The A21 Campaign, she said. Other events followed, with about 75 to 100 volunteers working every event, LaBorde said.
"I am so passionate about A21," she said. "I mean, that's like my other family."
LaBorde became involved in the movement while spending a year working with another of Caine's ministries in Australia. She was there when Caine returned after seeing the posters in the airport in Greece and conducted some of the early research that led to The A21 Campaign, she said.
LaBorde returned to Baton Rouge in 2008 with a new mission.
"I knew I had to find a way to connect university students with this incredible cause," she said.
"Our thing is to address trafficking on a global and local level," she said. In addition to A21, Tigers Against Trafficking works with a local group called Trafficking Hope, she said.
Tigers Against Trafficking has helped students establish similar groups at four other colleges, as well as Baton Rouge High School, LaBorde said.
"One of the most exciting things about Tigers Against Trafficking is seeing it live on" after she and the other founders graduate, said LaBorde, who hopes to become a human rights lawyer.
Caine: Don't try to do everything
Caine said she was in court recently for the trial of a trafficker. The judge asked the defendant why he engaged in human trafficking.
"People are so much easier (to traffic) than drugs," the man replied. "The sentencing is a lot less, and you can just kick them and they'll do what you say."
"I can't even believe somebody thinks like that," Caine said. "That's the dark side, that's the evil side. But I think, by and large, most people would think that's very evil and say we've got to stop that from happening.
"My job is to help put tools in people's hands and say, 'Yeah. Together we can stop that from happening.'"
"Often, I think, because we think, 'I can't do it all,' we end up being paralyzed. So we do nothing," said Caine. "But if we understand we can't do everything but we all must do something, and we all find the one thing that we can do, then we'll find that together we will all make such a huge difference and we'll be able to put a stop to this."
Do you feel angry? Disgusted? Outraged? Want to do something? I was reminded of how I
first felt when I learned the gruesome details of
The Modern Day Slave Trade.
I decided I was going to volunteer at
World Relief. Needless to say, I got distracted...and maybe a little scared, and didn't go.
I'm reading a book called
A Woman's Passionate Pursuit Of God In it the author, Karol Ladd, describes a "woman who lived with a singular focus and a passion for Christ. Amy Carmichael was sold out to the Lord, devoted to prayer, and committed to serving Christ through helping others in need. She was a woman with depth of insight and a desire to live for God wherever He called her."
Convicted? I certainly am. I definitely need to step up my prayer life and be committed to helping others in need. However, Amy's life work doesn't end there.
"Born in 1867 in Northern Ireland, Amy developed a compassion for people at a young age and had a
true sense of social concern. At the age of 17, she began teaching a Sunday School class to the girls who worked in the local mill in Belfast. The class quickly grew to over 500 ladies, yet at the age of 24, Amy felt God calling her to the foreign mission field. She began her missionary work in Japan with a fervent desire to win souls for Christ, but after 15 months, she had to leave Japan due to illness. Amy didn't allow a few little interruptions to stop her from spreading the gospel [that would preach!!] Eventually her missionary work took her to India, and it was there
she became aware of the terrible plight of the young girls sold into temple prostitution. Amy soon became know as
Amma (the Tamil world for 'mother') because she courageously began to take in and protect children who had been sold into child prostitution."
Does that sound familiar? She became aware then she took action. Once again I was convicted and reminded of
Modern Slavery.
Then I got to thinking, yes.... that's kinda scary :P
Remember my post about
my dream (<-- link)? Well I have an open mind... What if:
I can do all that with my local church
I can travel to other places helping get similar things set up
I can include my burden for human trafficking: after all women are abused and children are affected
I can partner with World Relief and help refugees
I cannot do any of that. I can take action, I need God's favor. Join me in praying for this. Next Thursday Laurie and I have a meeting at World Relief to get information and to see if we can work something out. :)
God wants a multi-cultural church, and a church that reaches out to those who are hurting. I want to do my part.
Confession of Love
My Vow: Whatsoever Thou sayest unto me, by Thy grace I will do it.
My Constraint: Thy love, O Christ, my Lord.
My Confidence: Thou art able to keep that which I have committed unto Thee.
My Job: To do Thy will, O God.
My Discipline: That which I would not choose, but which Thy love appoints.
My Prayer: Conform my will to Thine.
My Motto: Love to live - live to love.
My Portion: The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance.
Teach us, good Lord, to serve Thee as Thou deserves; to give and not count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labor and not to ask for any reward save that of knowing that we do Thy will, O Lord our God.
-Amy Carmichael
*** If you want more information about World Relief or The A21 Project <--- here are the links, as well as throughout the post.
