What is human trafficking?
Written by Kate Guther (student)
The United Nation defines human trafficking as “the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labour or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, debt bondage, or slavery.”
This is also known as the stealing of a humans dignity.
Many of us shudder when we hear the word “slave.” Slavery did not end a hundred years ago. Today we are witnessing the most thriving slave trade in all of history.
Internationally, slave trade is the Third largest illegal business after arms trade and drug trafficking and generates approximately $32 billion a year to put this into perspective:
Apple made $4.8 billion for the year of 2009 which means that the sale of humans generated five times as much profit.
An estimated 27 million people are currently enslaved worldwide. The international labour organization estimates that there are 12.3 million adults and children stuck in forced labour and of those at least 1.39 million are in sexual servitude and most of them are women (wimin) and girls.
2 children sold every minute
Trafficking is right in our backyard.
It's tragic. It's horrific. And it's happening along the quiet 720 kilometers between Prince George and Prince Rupert, a stretch now gruesomely dubbed the Highway of Tears, the place where 510 aboriginal girls have gone missing or murdered since 1980.
More than 500 of the cases have not been fully investigated. Perpetrators remain unpunished
The United Nations have warned Canada to do something about this.
In August 2008, a 17 year old girl and two 16 year old girls, were rescued from an apartment in Gatineau Quebec, one girl was held captive for a year, the other two girls for six months. All three were continually sexually exploited, drugged, beaten and raped throughout their ordeal.
The first person in Canada convicted of human trafficking involving a minor, received a three year sentence for the trafficking of a 15 year old girl but was credited 13 months for pre-trial custody. He made over $350,000 sexually exploiting her over two years before she was able to escape. Essentially he will spend less time in jail than he did exploiting her.
As Kevin Bales author of “Slave Next Door” writes:
"In a country that believes in liberty and justice for all, how can we as Canadians tolerate slavery in our backyard?
What is wrong with our country that it allows slave masters to live - and flourish - untroubled among us? What more can we as citizens do to fix this problem? And what will it take for our government, which serves at the will and for the good of its people, to dedicate the needed resources, both money and personnel, to destroying this evil?”
Hope
Written by Sue Van Daalen (staff)
Have we lost hope? Have we lost hope in making a difference? We certainly do not lack the power, the compassion, the courage of the knowledge…no we lack the hope. But we, we the church have access to a hope that can change everything. This is the same hope that drove Martin Luther King Jr and William Wilberforce; the hope that changes nations. We have hope in a God who hates injustice, who defends the orphan, cries with the widow, walks with the weary, bleeds with the beaten and is captive with the slave. However this hope is not cheap and it’s not easy. But in it’s purest form it has the power to contend with even the most horrific of injustices, the hell we see on earth and in the darkest brothels of our city.
We are beginning already to see glimmers of hope in the thick darkness right here in Toronto. Timea Nagy, sold from Budapest to Toronto, is a survivor and a passionate abolitionist. In partnership with local law enforcement, she has rescued 23 trafficking victims this year, who are all on their way to freedom and rehabilitation.
This is a sign of God’s hope still prevailing.
So let us not become the unwitting hoarders of hope. No! Let us embrace our inheritance of hope. Hope in a God who never becomes numb to the pain and the suffering who hears every cry. For what good is hope if we hide it in the dark corners of our heart?
We put our hope in a God who does far more than sympathize with us, wish us well and be on His way, yes we put our hope in a God who suffers alongside the oppressed.
Translated from Latin, compassion literally means, “To suffer with”; Psalm 146:5-10
Hope in a God of compassion moves us to action! Feed the hungry, clothes the naked, bandage the beaten; free the slaves, fight injustice with injustice!
How
Written by Janet Bulle (student)
Our group will be traveling this summer to Albania and Ukraine, which are two main source and destination countries for victims of human trafficking. Women and girls from Eastern Europe are at the highest risk of being trafficked. Poverty stricken, unemployed and desperately trying to care for their family, what woman could turn down a job opportunity in the west? We will be serving alongside organizations and individuals who have dedicated their lives to preventing the most vulnerable from being victimized such as the Roma Gypsies and orphans. We also hope to raise awareness through media presentations about this issue in their country. We’re going to get first hand exposure and be broken by the things that break God’s heart and be filled with the hope in the same God who suffers with the oppressed. Micah 6:8 says, “What does the Lord require of us? To do justice, love mercy and walk humble with our God.” Please join us on our journey as we learn to seek justice, and love mercy in Albania and Ukraine.
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