In Their Own Words.

Stalin has been credited with saying, "One death is tragedy, a million is a statistic." If he in fact uttered that statement it would certainly be a hollow admission (or perverse prophecy) by one of the single most evil men that ever ruled. Unfortunately for the victims of any humanitarian crisis, whoever it was that said it, might just be right.

In Richard Stearns' book The Hole In Our Gospel he expounds on this sentiment citing a 2007 University of Oregon study to make his point. Three test groups were given 3 different sets of information. The first was told the tragic story of young Rokia, an African girl who was an innocent victim of poverty. The second group was given this statistic: That across four African countries there were some 17 million hungry, and another 4 million homeless. The third group was given both Rokia's story and the statistics. According to the study's findings, the first group when asked for donations was much more generous than either of the other groups. Blame it on compassion fatigue or lack of imagination, the story of one suffering child trumped the numbers. I find personally this often holds true.

So, in their own excruciating but immensely powerful words, I wanted to let the child victims of sex trafficking speak for themselves. And though children should never say such things, (because they should never have to), their voices must be heard.

Hanna, age 13

"I was moved around by these people, to different places. In Romania, I had eight clients a day; in Turkey four or five a day; in Spain, ten. In the United Kingdom, probably twelve. Of course some of the clients beat you. This is how they treat you. They don't care if you live or die. They just do not want to get caught. So, I took an overdose, I tried to hang myself, I tried to jump off a balcony. If I died they get another girl to replace what I am doing. It is easy for them. There are so many girls. So many." (source: UNICEF)

Tiola, age 13

"A few hours later a group of men entered the room and began to yell and beat me. Each one took their turn with me. One would hold me down while the others raped me." The leader then told her her husband had sold her for $250. "He said I had to obey him or else I would be killed." Tiola was then repeatedly raped and beaten for seven days and then resold. "He beat my head so badly I couldn't see out of my eyes for two days." She was told if she didn't work as a prostitute her mother and sister in Albania would be killed. (source: UNICEF)

Chong Ok Sun, age 13

"I had to prepare lunch for my parents who were working in the field and so I went to the village well to fetch water. A Japanese garrison soldier surprised me there and took me away, so my parents never knew what happened to their daughter. I was taken to the police station in a truck, where I was raped by several policemen. When I shouted they put socks in my mouth and continued to rape me. The head of the police station hit me in my left eye because I was crying. That day I lost my eyesight in my left eye. After ten days or so, I was taken to the Japanese army garrison barracks in Heysan City. There were around 400 other Korean young girls with me and we had to serve over 5,000 Japanese soldiers as sex slaves everyday-- up to forty men per day. Each time I protested, they hit me or stuffed rags in my mouth. One held a matchstick to my private parts until I obeyed him. My private parts were oozing with blood." (UN Distr. General report)

It is said that narratives such as Harriet Jacob's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and The Narrative of the Life if Fredrick Douglass helped change the way average Americans viewed slavery, and may have ultimately shaped the political environment that led to abolition. Maybe the stories of these three 13 year olds (the average age a child is exploited) and the countless others like them will do the same. Maybe those stories will wake average people from ignorance or apathy and bring freedom for the estimated two million children consigned to the fate of sexual slavery every year.

Slave Free Products and How You Can Be Sure.

People ask us at Conspiracy Of Hope how they can know whether the goods they consume are free from slave labor. Here are a few web resources to mollify those concerns.

One great resource that grades corporations with respect to their human rights practices is called Free To Work . Free To Work is a joint operation of Not For Sale Campaign and International Labor Rights Forum.

Another organization called Rugmark International has a site called GoodWeave that is a certification program that works to eradicate child slave labor from the carpet industry.

Of course coffee drinkers of any discriminating taste have encountered the Fair Trade name and logo. Their certification process involves many consumables, most of whose industries are known for the most egregious forms of slave labor.

Another organization that is proactively seeking to eradicate slave labor is called SLAVEFREE. Their site has an easy and inventive way for the average person to easily let their voice be heard by the world's corporations, a grassroots photo petition demanding those companies be slave labor free.

If you'd like to post a comment with any other resources that offer assurances to consumers about the products they buy we'd welcome the help.

Organ Harvesting of Trafficking Victims.

As if the poor and destitute don't already have enough daily oppression from all sides there is another facet to the evils of human trafficking that is slowly coming to light. Organ harvesting. Although this topic has been the subject of urban legends and inflammatory internet campaigns the practice is not new nor is it one of isolated occurrences.

According to most estimates upwards of 20 thousand dollars can be made off of a kidney, nearly twice that for a healthy heart. This is the most instantaneously profitable of all the heinous crimes perpetrated on victims of human trafficking, a fact that is not lost on the major organized crime syndicates. And of course children are in relatively better health than adults, being younger and having not abused or had their bodies abused for many years. So as with all facets of the evil of trafficking, children bear the brunt of the exploitation.

A high profile organ trafficking case in the year 2000 involved a Russian woman selling her grandson to "westerners" for 90 thousand dollars. The child was rescued but the amount of money to be gained only hints at the sheer number of criminals involved in this horrific practice. In India in 2007 19 women were found dead in an Indian slum apparently the victims of the organ trade. Three Ukrainian women were arrested recently in Italy as they attempted to sell a baby to undercover agents for the sum of 500 thousand dollars. The women were suspected of having completed several transactions previously. Annually, thousands of political prisoners in China are harvested of their organs moments before their executions.

Statistics are hard to come by, but it is estimated that there are 10 thousand victims of organ theft in China alone each year. The sheer number of women and children that go unaccounted for globally every year suggest that the numbers could be staggering. The fact that the victim is killed and therefore truly voiceless adds to the difficulty of putting this horror to numbers. Whereas in other types of exploitation many people come into contact with the victim at regular intervals and information can be acquired. What is clear is that current trends are alarming and that we must be vigilant on yet another front when it come to the war against human trafficking.