How many slaves work for you?

I FINALLY saw a screening of Call and Response yesterday. The "rock-u-mentary" led me through a rollercoaster of emotions. It was horrifying, heart-wrenching, hopeful, and even funny at times. One thing for sure, I can no longer stay ignorant or complacent.

I wrote a post a few months ago on human trafficking, but this documentary actually showed some of the victims sharing their stories. First of all, human trafficking occurs within a wide variety of trades: child soldiers, agriculture workers, factory workers, and prostitution to name a few. I think now over 80% of human slaves are sex slaves. Girls (and boys) are kidnapped sometimes as young as one year old! The documentary showed some heart-wrenching footage of 6-7 year-olds offering their services to an undercover reporter.

Most sex slaves are either kidnapped or tricked into their positions, seeking better opportunities but then being blackmailed into their situations. They are broken, mentally and physically, and oftentimes are forced into meth addiction to ensure their dependency on their pimps. Because customers pay more for virgins, some girls are forced to undergo painful surgeries to appear as one, then pimped out to the highest bidder, and undergo the surgery again forming an endless cycle. They are locked up in little chambers (that make my tiny Austin studio look like a palace) where they are called out only to perform services. They are used to make money over and over again until they wear out or contract a disease. They are then disposed of and left to die.

Trafficking doesn't just happen abroad - it is common in the US. In fact, it is even common in Austin. The documentary talks about how some pimps scour the malls for young girls who are alone. They target the insecure ones, woo them with kind words and compliments, then "take them for a drive" where they are never heard from again.

Sex slaves aside, there are people in this world forced into backbreaking labor, sometimes working over 20 hours a day for a sustained period of time. And they are not paid for their work. In fact, there are more slaves today then during the time Africans were enslaved by the colonies. The products the slaves today make are sold more cheaply because the companies save on labor costs. The scary thing is, it is difficult to trace products back to how they were made. I look around my apartment - most of the things I own I bought for a bargain. As a graduate student, I have gotten adept at buying the cheapest products without sacrificing quality. Now I suspect the products I buy can be so cheap only because the labor with which they were made cost nothing.

A new website recently launched (be patient while they work out bugs) estimates how many slaves it might have taken to make the products you currently own. The website is: http://slaveryfootprint.org. As soon as it comes back up I'll make sure to take it and report back to you.

***Edit I just took the quiz today (10/4/11). I have 29 slaves working for me...yikes! End edit***

For now, I'll be super careful what I buy - paying special attention to whether items are free trade or not. After all, as much as I want to be frugal and a good steward of my money, if something is cheap, it may be because someone else paid for it with their freedom. And that is something I cannot stand behind!

Human Trafficking

Photo originally found on www.curatormagazine.com

I listened to a powerful message today called Human Trafficking by Benji Nolot. If you are interested AT ALL in human trafficking, I highly recommend it. It has completely changed the way I view social justice.

Did you know as of 2007, there were conservatively 27-30 million slaves on our planet? Some experts even estimate there being actually over 200 million slaves, most of who are not accounted for. Out of the slaves over 70% are sex slaves. The women might end up servicing 50 men a day, and suffer through countless abortions over the years. Tens of thousands of women are smuggled EVERY DAY to fuel this grossly profitable industry. When we think about sex trafficking, we often think of countries such as Cambodia and Bangkok. Although what is happening in those countries are no less than atrocious, the top three countries in which women are outsourced are Australia, Japan, and the United States. The United States!?!! Who knew that the land of the free would be importing over 100,000 sex slaves a year!

We think about social justice as being simply an earthly thing, yet it is so much more than that. Social Justice is a spiritual issue. Benji Nolot shared stories and testimonies that point to there being dark spiritual forces creating and perpetuating oppression of human lives. As evidenced in Daniel 10 in the Bible, there is a "prince" over different dominions that we are fighting against. If this is true - if the source of social injustice lies in the spiritual realm - this changes how we must live our lives.

Whenever we participate and give into lust, objectification, sexism, racism, etc., we are coming alongside the very same spirit that is fueling human trafficking, poverty, and other forms of social injustice. Thus, our purity and personal holiness matter! Furthermore, in the Bible we are told repeatedly that the government sits on Christ's shoulders (Isaiah 9). If this is true, OUR PRAYERS MATTER. We cannot simply fight social injustice on an earthly level, we MUST also appeal on a spiritual realm. The only way we can do that is through prayer, both individually and corporately.

I have often lamented the fact that my enrollment in school has kept me from uprooting myself abroad to stand in the front lines of fighting human trafficking. Now I realize I CAN stand in the front lines by getting on my knees everyday and appealing to the One who holds the government on His shoulders. And I can only pray that soon, I'll be able to use my skills and talents to take action and fight one of the biggest evils facing our planet today.