Human Trafficking. I knew about it when I was growing up in Chicago, but not by that name. And not in the fullness of what we today understand it to be. Where I grew up we simply called it prostitution– an age-old term that conveniently allowed us to place the blame on the woman for her involvement in “the world’s oldest occupation.”
My senior research paper at Northwestern University School of Law (many, many years ago) was entitled Prostitution: Discriminatory Enforcement of Morals Legislation. In it I argued that although arrested far more frequently, women were far more likely to be the actual victims in this three-way, pay-for-sex dance. (It just happened to be written shortly before Chicago announced a policy to begin focusing equally on the johns who propositioned prostitutes.) Still, like most people at that time, I saw prostitution as being consensual acts between two willing people. I had no idea just how wrong I was, and it would be years before I understood the true magnitude of human trafficking.
Most of us do not understand why trafficked women don’t just say ‘no.’ The most difficult thing about our being naive is the victims’ continued suffering. Trafficked persons are usually too afraid to run or ask for help. If they even complain they are beaten or worse, and they live in constant fear that if they should run away their families would be visited in the middle of the night by people whose violent ways they know all too well.
There is a good chance that you or I have been closer to human trafficking– in one or more of its several permutations– than we could ever have imagined.
The FBI classifies human trafficking in two broad categories– forced sex and forced labor, saying: “Here in this country, people are being bought, sold, and smuggled like modern-day slaves, often beaten, starved, and forced to work as prostitutes or to take jobs as migrant, domestic, restaurant, or factory workers with little or no pay. Over the past decade, human trafficking has been identified as a heinous crime which exploits the most vulnerable in society.” (Source: www.fbi.gov/investigate/civil-rights/human-trafficking).
January 11 is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. We all need to become better informed. As scripture tells us, “my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.“ and while taken out of context, the words ring true. As the British abolitionist William Wilberforce, once said in his fight against African slavery: “You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.”
My increased focus on human trafficking is borne out of a desire to see people of good will better armed with information. Especially people in the church. For I am reminded of the words of Luke 4:18, where Jesus said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath . . . sent me to preach deliverance to the captives, and . . . to set at liberty them that are bruised.”
As a black man in America, I thank God for the abolitionists who fought to end the Slave Trade in this land. Modern-day victims of human slavery need voices raised on their behalf, too. The preaching of deliverance must be inclusive and begin to focus on their plight, too. The efforts of well-intentioned people must begin to zero in on setting them free.
To be sure, not all women involved in prostitution are victims of human trafficking. And it may be hard to identify the ones who are. But children aged 8 to 17 should be automatically presumed to be under someone else’s control.
In Isaiah 58:6 we see these inspirational words: “Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?”
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, after his office conducted a massive sting operation where a 16-year-old girl was involved, showed his understanding of the real, underlying need: “Any sting operation that saves one person from human trafficking is worth the effort of the entire operation.”
So, too, I say, any outreach effort, any prophetic utterance, any prayer. Mark this date down on your calendar. The day, like the problem, will surely come again.
