Awareness

Warning: this post contains PG-13 topics.

Human trafficking.  What does that even mean? Where is it done?  How big of a problem is it? I had no idea until recently.

There are between 12 and 27 million people, most of the women and children, enslaved in the world today. In Uganda, the Lord's Resistance Army raids villages and forces children to become brutal soldiers and concubines at young ages.  In Thailand and India, kids and women are forced into hard labor with little food and water and no way out.  In Europe, poor women are lured into sexual slavery with the false promise of good jobs in other countries.  In Peru, children are living on the street and often get kidnapped and forced into brothels.

What hit home the most is that this problem is not only overseas, it is in our own country too.  About 18,000 foreigners are trafficked into America each year to be forced laborers or work in brothels. Even American citizens, usually young and vulnerable, are kidnapped or lured into forced labor or sexual slavery with threats of violence and tight security measures to make sure they can't leave.  An estimated 200,000 American children are at high risk for trafficking into the sex industry each year.

In fact, Houston is one of the major human-trafficking hubs in the U.S. According to Houston Rescue and Restore, 25% of all human trafficking victims certified in the U.S. were in Texas and the majority of that was in Houston.

Go here to read an article on Houston's hidden problem.

Go here to read a shocking, eye-opening story about the "lost girls" of Houston.

If you're like me, you are reading this with your jaw dropped right now.  How could I live here my whole life and never hear about this?!

I thought slavery was abolished.  William Wilberforce and Martin Luther King Jr., and all the other abolitionists got rid of it, right?

There are more people enslaved in the world today than there were at the height of the civil rights movement.  The difference is that now it is in the black market and not widely seen.

I am shocked and appalled.

And I have to be honest here, a while back I heard on the news that police had busted a ring of brothels in Houston, and my first thought was "we have brothels in Houston?"  My second thought was "I'm glad those horrible women got caught."

It never entered my mind that they might actually be there against their will.

As soon as I began hearing about this, I ordered some books about it.  I would recommend reading:

Not For Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade and How We Can Fight It by David Batstone

Zealous Love: A Practical Guide to Social Justice by Mike and Danae Yankoski

We are attending the Free The Captives Houston Anti-Trafficking Conference on February 26.  And I am excited!  From the website, "You will learn about local and global human trafficking and discover practical ways to combat this injustice."

Also if you are like me, you might delay reading up on this stuff for a while.  I didn't want to learn about it because I knew it would change things up in my life and I didn't want that.  It seemed so overwhelming, so why even try?

But eventually, I couldn't ignore it anymore.  God was working in my heart until I finally said "ok, fine!  I'll read about it."  And I was right.  Now that I know about it, I can't sit by and ignore the problem.  But God prepared me so that I no longer want to ignore it! 

I may not start my own non-profit company dedicated to human trafficking victims, but I can help starting out small.  For me that means praying for those in bondage around the world, spending money responsibly on fair trade items (more about that later), and writing what I am learning here.

Awareness is the first step.

May God open my eyes to those hurting around me and convict my heart so that I cannot ignore them.  And may He give me the courage and strength to do something about it.