Trafficking In The 21st Century
From March Pres by Dick Nelson
There is a great movie out called “Amazing Grace,” which describes the life of William Wilberforce, who headed the effort to abolish slavery in England. He endured ridicule, yet ultimately won the begrudging respect of many of his political rivals for his perseverance as well as his efforts to reform the public morals of his country. In this country, the issue was settled by the Civil War in which over 600,000 men were killed. The 13th Amendment outlawed slavery. The trafficking of men, women and children, for the purpose of sexual exploitation, or labor is a world-wide phenomenon. We live in a small town in the Central Valley where it is difficult to identify with the issue of human trafficking in remote places of Eastern Europe, or impoverished Bolivian villages, or Indian salt mines. The very nature of the subject is sordid. Yet as Wilberforce was a voice in his time, so evangelicals today are called to be both a voice of justice and a voice of mercy.
Indeed the problem is larger today than in the day of Wilberforce. Captive Diaries, a blog of Captive Daughters, a California group headed by a woman whose intention is to eliminate trafficking, quotes Cardinal Renato Martino, Vatican emissary to the UN, “Today’s trafficking in women and children for commercial sex work, and forced labor is worse than the historic African slave trade” (Nov 20, 2006).
What is human trafficking?
Human trafficking is defined in The Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act 2000 as:
The recruitment, transportation, harboring, or receipt of persons by means of threat or force, or other forms of coercion, abduction, of fraud, deception, abuse of power or of position of vulnerability or giving or receiving payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person ,having control over another person for purpose of exploitation of the prostitution of others, forced labor or services, slavery, or practices similar to slavery, servitude , or the removal of organs.
Trafficking is not the same as illegal immigration, nor does it necessarily involve movement of a person from one place to another.
A brief survey of Captive Daughters, California Watch, provides references to numerous links highlighting California trafficking:
1. Dec 5 , 2006 – “Stemming the Sex Trade in San Francisco.”
2. Nov 7, 2006 – San Francisco Chronicle – Sex Trafficking which chronicled the importation of Chinese and Korean women who were forced to work in the sex trade throughout the city to pay off debts. (This was a large four part series).
3. June 23 ,2008 – Richmond Man Sentenced for Sex Trafficking, SF Gate.
4. Jan 4 2007 – Agencies Battle Child Sex Trafficking- Inside Bay Area News.
5. March 25, 2006 – Program Paints Grim Picture of Human Trafficking- North County Times.
Trafficking in women, and children, and men, is a massively lucrative criminal enterprise, tied with illegal arms sale for profitability. This is a little different issue from illegal migration, though illegal’s are vulnerable to being trafficked. There are many markets for trafficking. Women are trafficked for prostitution, children for sex and cheap labor, men for labor.
Historically numbers for slavery worldwide in the 16th to 19th centuries range upwards of 15 million Africans. Today according to UN estimates, “27 million men, women, and children held in modern day slavery,” (John Sniffen: “Proclaim Freedom,” Presbyterians Today, June-July 2008). Conservative estimates of trafficking within this country range from 12,000 – 17000 people. Worldwide estimates of trafficking across international borders range from 600,000 to 800,000 people (U.S. Dept of Justice- www.usdoj.crt/crime/trafficking_report2006.pdf).
Within our own denomination efforts have been made to publicize the problem of human trafficking in Overture 062 which was presented to the General Assembly Council in April 2008. It is ironic that conservatives should find common cause with both liberals and feminists on these issues because they are issues which are close to the heart of God. Micah 6:8, “do justice and love mercy.” True religion has feet, hands, ears which hear.
What is being done in response to this?
I would like to touch on two diverse approaches to trafficking, from both legal and economic angles, and mention some groups which are involved in this.
International Justice Mission (www.ijm.org) is headed by Gary Haugen. He grew up in Sacramento, went to Harvard, and University of Chicago Law School, and worked for the Justice Department. He is profiled in a Jan 19, 2009 article in New Yorker, “Attorney for the World’s Poor,” written by Samantha Power, professor at JFK School of Government. Haugen’s mission was to provide top quality legal representation to poor people in Third World countries. Though not exclusively concerned with trafficking, IJM has freed over 200 people in one area of India who were given certificates of release by the government as well as some compensation, to restart their lives.
IJM is also an advocacy group, providing testimony to US agencies as well as foreign governments, training legal groups to recognize trafficking, as well as investigating complaints of trafficking which are helpful in prosecuting perpetrators. This is not a group for well intentioned neophytes according to Haugen. IJM has over 200 lawyers and investigators who work overseas, the majority of whom have extensive trial experience.
The problem of trafficking is overwhelming and intimidating. I will probably not be the person involved in the rescue of trafficked people from San Francisco massage parlors, nor will I be re writing a Bill of Rights in Guatemala or India. However there is one thing that I could do, one small step to counter this massive problem. I can direct some of my purchases of things towards groups and efforts directly affected in trafficking areas, realizing that economic vulnerability, lack of jobs, poverty, corruption all increase the vulnerability of people to a trafficker’s pitch. I would like to present a positive model for combat, Trade as One.
Trade as One (www.tradeasone.com) Nathan George, founder of Trade as One, was a former software salesman in the Silicon Valley. In an address to local Monterey, CA businessmen in 2006, he said:
Mother Teresa named poverty as the worst evil in the world. When you see the dehumanization that it causes you understand why. If you barely have enough to survive on, you can at least have sex. You can create assets which can be liquidized. And the train in human beings is bigger now than it ever was in Wilberforce’s day. There are whole villages in Cambodia turned over to sex tourism where a child virgin sells for over $3000. The precipice that poverty holds over people brings out the darkest side of human beings.
George quoted several facts:
1. 1 billion people in the world live on less than $1 a day.
2. Americans spend more on cosmetics, and Europeans more on ice cream than it would cost to provide schooling and sanitation for the billion people who have neither.
George saw the necessity prescribed in the gospel that God is vitally interested in poor people, their needs and concerns, which a self-absorbed overly consumptive US often chooses to ignore.
Trade as One is a bridge, helping market goods from sustainable operations which employ previously destitute people. This such trade is a powerful conduit between rich and poor. He sources goods of high quality from 62 different businesses throughout the world which are categorized and certified as Fair Trade, i.e. workers are paid above minimum scale and work in decent conditions.
Hagar Ministries (www.hagarcambodia.org) is one of these groups partnering with Trade as One, and is active in Cambodia. It employs women from all sorts of backgrounds, and has set up several larger operations in Cambodia: Hagar Soya, the largest soy milk processor in Cambodia; Hot Apparel which manufactures beautiful hand bags and accessories; and Hagar Catering, which employs 156 people.
Trade by countering the economic vulnerability of destitute people creates jobs, provides consistent income, and trains people often with tools to create their own businesses.
Listen again to Nathan George, (Nov 14, 2007, “Subverting Consumerism”):
What better time than Christmas, when so much gift buying is meaningless, to buy a gift that gives a job to someone with HIV in Kenya, to a woman taken from human trafficking in Thailand, or to an genocide orphan in Rwanda. Churches around the country are starting to wake up to their role as thought and practice leaders in subverting consumerism to bring hope and positive change to some of these dark places. With Trade as One, we harness and subvert a very powerful engine of change- commerce.”
Amazing Grace Evening
On June 7 we will be having what we call an “Amazing Grace Evening” where we will discuss these important issues close to the heart of God. We invite everyone to attend. If you have a chance before June 7, watch the movie “Amazing Grace” and be prepared to confront some of the contemporary issues which exist in this day and time.
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Thank you for the reminder that these issues are real and that the church needs to take action!