Zealous Love: On Human Trafficking

A friend told me recently that she usually reads my blog first thing in the morning, but she thinks it would be better to read it in the evening, because the content is sometimes too serious for the beginning of her day.  I'm giving you a heads-up that this is one of those posts.  I'm reading through Zealous Love, a practical guide to social justice.

First of all, let me say that the editors, Mike and Danae Yankoski, view social justice as a lifestyle of using everything God has given them to serve Him, to be "good and faithful servants."  Mike wrote, "Part of me would like to believe that going to church on Sunday and reading my Bible every once in a while is enough to dupe Jesus into mumbling those words in my general direction when I enter heaven.  But another part of me isn't satisfied with that--the part of me that remembers what Christ has done for us.  He died, was buried, and then got up again so that we might have Life.  Not lower-case, live-for-our-own-pleasures life, but live-to-change-the-world Life with a capital L.  This Life doesn't require checking things off my "Christian to-do list" but rather giving everything to Christ, because he gave up everything for us (Phil.2:6-7). (p.15)  Mike and the other contributing writers challenge Christians to an active love, demonstrated by helping others in eight areas of social justice.  The first area is human trafficking.

From the "Briefing" (pp. 24-26):  

• Modern day slavery includes both sex trafficking and involuntary servitude for labor of services.
• Around 1.2 million children are trafficked each year, many of them for purposes of sexual exploitation.
• There are between 12.3 million and 27 million men, women, and children in slavery today, meaning that more people are enslaved today than during the whole of the trans-Atlantic African slave trade.
• Human trafficking creates profits of at least $32 billion dollars a year for those involved.  This is more than the individual GDP of more than half of the countries (127) in our world. 
• An estimated 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked annually in the United States.  This number does not include U. S. citizens trafficked within our country, an even higher number.  
• An estimated 200,000 American children are at a high risk of being trafficked into the sex trade each year. 

The book has several field studies of real human trafficking cases to educate the reader on the reality of the injustice. The stories depict both economic and spiritual poverty that drove people into situations of vulnerability that ended in slavery.  When a person is in survival mode, he or she is not too concerned about morality and become easy prey for traffickers.


How can we get involved as advocates for justice?  Taken from "Now What?" (p. 45-47)

• Pray for mercy and freedom, and for long-term solutions that would dismantle oppression and glorify God.
• Open our eyes to the slave trade and the atrocities that are currently taking place.
• Get involved.  Learn about trafficking, teach others, work to organize an anti-trafficking movement in your city.  Get involved with the organizations on the "front lines."  Make a donation or raise money on their behalf.  Become a volunteer at an anti-trafficking organization.  The possibilities are endless.
• Advocate for political change.  Write your elected officials and ask them to pass legislation against trafficking.  
• Make the little things count: research supply chains and buy slavery-free products; buy survivor-made products to empower survivors.  Some helpful websites:  norforsalescampaign.org, madebysurvivors.com, ransomwear.org, www.intlprincess.org.
• Report suspected cases of human trafficking.  

 Organizations fighting human trafficking: 

• Polaris Project:  www.polarisproject.org
• International Justice Mission:  www.ijm.org
• Restore International:  www.restoreinternational.org
• Not for Sale Campaign:  www.notforsalecampaign.org
• The SOLD Project:  www.thesoldproject.com
• Zealous Love:  www.zealouslove.org