The Locust Effect: Why The End Of Poverty Requires The End Of Violence

In the following quote Gary Haugen sums up the title and the premise of his new book The Locust Effect. “Without the world noticing, the locusts of common, criminal violence are right now ravaging the lives and dreams of billions of our poorest neighbors.” It is rare, that a statement like this, one so enormous, so far reaching in its implications, so shocking in its claim can also be undeniably true. As with the holocaust or the purgings of Stalin or Mao's "great leap forward" that saw 45 million killed in 4 years, all humanity wonders aloud how this could be happening under our noses, "without the world noticing". They ask where the good people are? The collective ego assumes we have evolved past this sort of mass evil. Mr. Haugen goes on to indict us all.

“One would hope that if the world woke up to such a reality, it would swiftly acknowledge and respond to the disaster—but tragically, the world has neither woken up to the reality nor responded in a way that offers meaningful hope for the poor. It has mostly said and done nothing. And as we shall see, the failure to respond to such a basic need—to prioritize criminal justice systems that can protect poor people from common violence—has had a devastating impact on two great struggles that made heroic progress in the last century but have stalled out for the poorest in the twenty-first century: namely, the struggle to end severe poverty and the fight to secure the most basic human rights.”

Here are just a few statistics from The Locust Effect that we at COH found excruciating.

-29.8 million men, women and children enslaved today

-70% of women in Peru have been the victims of rape or attempted rape.

-95% of women and girls who have reported sexual violence are still waiting for justice. Average wait time 6 years for those that finally get justice. Most do not.

-Only 5 perpetrators of forced labor in India have been arrested in the last 15 years. There are upwards of 10 million enslaved in India in forced labor.

-Worldwide there are nearly 2 million children in the sex trade.

-Every year 5 million people are the victims of forced eviction. 

-In the developing world school is the most prevalent place for sexual violence. This means more girls denied education when parents keep them home to keep them safe. And of course many girls dropping out of school traumatized by the sexual violence.

-And finally, the statistic that brings this all together in staggering, mind-bending soul-crushing fashion, 4 billion of the world's poorest people are estimated to live outside of the protection of the law.

In the absence of enforced law the strong take from the weak whenever they desire. Land, sex, physical labor; all the poor have, coerced or stolen or worse from them all across the developing world. The problem is deeply complex, rooted in and mired by years of bad governance and inattention by the world community. And though it speaks to the wickedness men are capable of it also reveals how this same wickedness can be kept in relative check where there is rule of law. Please read this book. It will change how you understand poverty, how you view the world. 

WTF(atwa)!!! or The Cowardice Of Evil.

One of the most maddening, disheartening factors of the fight against Human Trafficking and the fight to protect children from sexual brutalization is the complicity of law enforcement in many countries. The stories of police officers being bribed or being regular patrons at brothels where young girls are forced into prostitution are many, and the magistrates and judges that continue to be bought off make the conviction rate for traffickers anemic and laughable. But when self appointed, self-important, judiciaries take the law into their own hands and mete out the most reprehensible of rulings under the religious guise of fatwa, it breaks the will of even the most hopeful optimists.




Hena was 14 when her 40 year old married cousin raped and beat her. That was last Sunday in Bangladesh. And though the man did not deny his crime, Hena was not given justice. Instead she was given one hundred one lashes. But at least for tiny Hena she didn't have to experience all of them, that's because she fell unconscious after 70. The young girl was rushed to the hospital where her broken body was beyond repair, and she died today, five days later.



The fatwa council that met early Monday convicted Hena of adultery, which is often just code for being alone with a man, but in Hena's case the reality was much more tragic. Her punishment was swift. Her death, unimaginably painful and infinitely senseless. The High Court is demanding an explanation but there is only one: evil is a coward. Evil hides under white sheets and under the cover of darkness, it masquerades as blind justice, but it blinds those who have no appetite for confrontation. It preys on the weak and defenseless and is emboldened at the deafening silence of society. It uses religion, every religion, as a justification for its lust for power and control, it uses religion as a blunt object, a raised fist that strikes fear into the heart of those that would resist.

Conspiracy Of Hope is a non-political group. Our members are as varied as are their beliefs. We do however support legislation that protects the innocent from exploitation and we support organizations that work tirelessly to see the law enforced justly.

International Justice Mission is one such organization. They work with just local law enforcement, lawyers and judges all over the world to protect the rights of the innocent. Their work with Project Lantern in Cebu, Philippines led to the number of underage girls in brothels declining by 79%. (You can read the COH blog about Project Lantern here.)

IJM has also put together a petition to ask President Obama to renew his administration's commitment to justice for the victims of trafficking. You can sign the petition here. It takes all of 30 seconds. Also there will be legislation going before congress soon called the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA). We will keep you up to date on the status of the legislation and let you know when you can call your congresspersons to let them know you support it. The legislation will give the State department some of the tools it needs to help other governments fight trafficking by enforcing anti-slavery and anti-exploitation laws already on the books and by encouraging them to amend Draconian laws like the one behind the fatwa that led to little Hena being beaten to death for being raped.

Please use your voice, your talents, your resources to expose the injustice of trafficking. Please support organizations like IJM that are fighting relentlessly to stem the tide of injustice. Remember, every time you speak out, the cowardice of evil is exposed for what it is, and you give the Henas of the world a fighting chance.

From all of us at Conspiracy Of Hope, thank you for being that voice.

This Is What's At Stake.

What happens when human traffickers are not scared of the law? They are emboldened and the exploitation of children becomes ever more perverse, the girl's get younger and younger, and the light of decency flickers, fades and finally starts to go out.



If this isn't a call to action then we are not listening. No child should ever learn to count in increments of oral sex prices. No girl with her baby teeth should ever have to perform oral sex on any man. Until childhood and innocence become priceless to us, they will always be for sale to someone else. As long as one child is for sale, all children are in danger.

This is what's at stake.

India.

Almost a sixth of the world's population is in India. Well over one billion people in one incredibly diverse and complicated country. The opulence and riches of it's cities, Delhi, Bangalore, Pune, and Hyderabad stand intricately intertwined and in such stark contrast to the shanty towns and millions of homeless. In fact out of the 100 million homeless people in the world there are close to 80 million homeless in India alone. Over 60 percent of those are women.

There are 35 million Orphans in India and 18 million of them live on the streets. They are generally from the lower castes and are ripe for exploitation at the hands of human traffickers. Social prejudice along with extreme poverty are two of the main factors that perpetuate these staggering statistics. India is also home to 63% of all slum dwellers in South Asia. Approximately 35 percent or 260 million people (a group almost equal to the entire population of the United States) still earns $1 or less a day.

I am going to India this May. I have a dear friend whose family has an orphanage there. He is going to take me to those shanty towns and slums. I am going to put faces to those statistics. I am going to put stories to those faces. I am praying for a revelation. I have to believe there is a solution. That there is hope for the millions of bonded laborers in India. Freedom for the whole families who have been enslaved for years by false loans and broken promises mixed with some naive sense of honor and the desperation that comes with extreme poverty. Justice for the children as young as 7 forced to work 14 hours a day in firework factories until the ends of their fingers are so badly blistered and then cauterized by their evil taskmasters so they can get back to work. I have to believe there is hope, because they have ceased to believe that there is.

Please get involved. Please join the fight against poverty, against human trafficking, against injustice and exploitation. Please find an organization to join and join Conspiracy of Hope, we'd love to have you. Please, before it's too late.

MLK

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a man of eloquence, of courage, a man who did not tolerate injustice. He said "freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."


Today we celebrate this man. Today Conspiracy of Hope stands with him to sound again the cry for justice. But today we must admit that the oppressed often have no voice. That we as free people must demand freedom on their behalf. We must demand that the exploitation of children stops. That the bonded labor of families ends. That any one held captive must be freed immediately. All free people everywhere must join together to cry out for justice and for abolition, and to fight for them, or we may find that one day, and it may be soon, the shackles and the ropes may tighten around our own ankles, our own wrists, and around our own necks.

M.