Last Chance.

Today is National Call-In Day for the Child Protection Compact Act. And though this is a lame duck session we still have a chance to get this life saving legislation passed. It takes just one minute to call your senator, and that 60 seconds could mean 30+ million dollars over the next 3 years allocated to fight the enslavement and sexual exploitation of children. For those of you unfamiliar with the bill here is the link.

There is nothing controversial about this bill. Nothing partisan, no line item pork, no politics as usual. This is merely a chance for us as a nation to stand in solidarity with those who have no strength to stand, a chance for us to raise our voices for those who are voiceless. And here is a sample of what you can say:

“Hi, my name is [NAME] and I’m calling from [City, State]. I’m calling to ask Senator [NAME] to vote YES to pass the Child Protection Compact Act (S. 3184). This bill would help to eradicate child trafficking, an issue I really care about. Would you please pass my message on to the Senator? Thank you!”

Here is the link to find your Senator's number.

It is a great privilege for us at Conspiracy Of Hope to lobby on behalf of the smallest victims of Human Trafficking and from the bottom of our hearts we thank you for taking 60 seconds, from your what we know is a very busy day, to defend the cause of justice and demand freedom for the 1.8 million children the International Labor Organization estimates are trapped in illegal pornography and prostitution yearly. Please call. And if you don't mind. Let us know you did.

In Their Own Words. Little Girls.

Drugged with a "sweet drink" by a friend, Gina awoke on a train – never to see her family again. When Gina arrived in Bombay after a three-day journey from her home in Nepal, she remembers being grabbed by the hand, rushed down a crowded street through "a sea of legs" to a dingy brothel. They put makeup on her face and then the "seasoning" process began.

She was repeatedly raped, beaten and starved until she was too afraid to leave her new "home." (Businesses have sprouted up all over Bombay whose sole purpose it is to perform seasonings for brothel owners.)

Because of Gina's young age, she was held out by her owners as a virgin -- again and again. Sexual encounters numbered as many as 40 per day. Younger girls like Gina -- especially virgins -- command a higher price in the brothels.

Recently, Shared Hope International helped pay Gina's debt and brought her into one of our newly-opened Homes of Hope. There she is getting the physical and emotional care she needs to start a new life. She is learning skills that will help her become self-sufficient.




"It was late afternoon,” she says in a monotone. “I was washing dishes at the river with six other girls. We tried to run, but they caught us. Three girls resisted. To punish them, the rebels cut off their ears. They knifed out their eyes. Then they killed them. I was so afraid, I couldn’t move. They said if we struggled, they would kill us too. They raped us. They held me down. It was the first time I had sex.”

Over the next four days, the tall, graceful girl,was gang-raped repeatedly by rebel soldiers. It was two weeks before she could walk again. “Each night we were tied by the ankles to the girl next to us. The rebels had sex with us in the presence of everyone. It was always different men. Every time, they hurt me. If I cried, they beat me. I prayed all the time I would not become pregnant.”

During the day she was used as a human shield, and watched as other girls got gunned down. She was also a porter. “They took our shoes and made us walk barefoot through the bush for as much as 40 kilometers. The loads were so heavy, I could barely lift them. If you complained, or stopped, they beat you.” Some girls abducted by the rebel forces have become combatants, and a handful have even risen to the rank of squad commander. Mostly, however, they are employed in a perverted form of their traditional roles: as porters, cooks, looters, and sex slaves. Many of them, like I., are made to be all four.

In December 1997, government forces overran the rebel base. At the time, I.’s closest friend was quite visibly pregnant. “They called her a rebel wife, and said they had to kill her before she gave birth to a rebel baby,” she says. “They slit open her stomach. I will never forget her cries. They cut out her unborn baby. In front of my eyes, they killed Mariam.” (Source: “Sierra Leone Is No Place to be Young.” NY Times (14 February 1999)

"When I was fourteen, a man came to my parents' house in Veracruz, Mexico and asked me if I was interested in making money in the United States. He said I could make many times as much money doing the same things that I was doing in Mexico. He said I would be in good hands, and would meet many other Mexican girls who had taken advantage of this great opportunity. My parents didn't want me to go, but I persuaded them. A week later, I was smuggled into the United States through Texas to Orlando, Florida. It was then the man told me that my employment would consist of having sex with men for money.

And so my nightmare began. Because I was a virgin, the men decided to initiate me by raping me again and again, to teach me how to have sex. Over the next three months, I was taken to a different trailer every 15 days. Every night I had to sleep in the same bed in which I had been forced to service customers all day. And because I was so young, I was always in demand with the customers. It was awful. Although the men were supposed to wear condoms, some didn't, so eventually I became pregnant and was forced to have an abortion. They sent me back to the brothel almost immediately.

I cannot forget what has happened. I can't put it behind me. I find it nearly impossible to trust people. I still feel shame. I was a decent girl in Mexico. I used to go to church with my family. I only wish none of this had ever happened." (Testimony of Rosa before US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 2000)

And for the girls I've met along the way, who have humbled me with their stories of stolen childhoods and inspired me by their survival and dedication to justice, thank you. When the fight seems too big, your words are fuel, your words go with me, I carry them always in my heart. And for Gina, and Rosa, and "I" from Sierra Leone, and for J. and for C.....from all of us at Conspiracy Of Hope, you are loved.

Slaves of god.

Trokosi comes from an Ewe word meaning "slave of the gods". It is a religious and cultural practice in which young girls, mostly virgins, are sent into lifelong servitude to atone for the alleged crimes of their relatives. There are more than five thousand young girls and women being kept in 345 shrines in the southeastern part of Ghana.

According to the American Anti-Slavery Group, "until the 18th century the offering typically took the form of livestock or other gifts, but that began to change and priests began demanding, and receiving, virgin girls as atonement for the sins of their relatives. Girls, often under the age of 10, are brought to the priest, ritually stripped of all their possessions, including clothes, and told they have to do anything the priest tells them. Most girls are raped repeatedly."

Juliana Dogbadzi, enslaved in a shrine in her native Ghana at the age of 6, was forced to perform sexual services for the holy man. She was able to escape seventeen years later, after several failed attempts, at the age of twenty-three.

Devadasi literally means god’s (Dev) female servant (Dasi), where according to the ancient Indian practice, young pre-pubescent girls are ‘given’ in matrimony to god or local religious deity of the temple. The girl ‘serves’ the priests and inmates of the temple. The sexual service given these men is considered service of god. The Devadasi is dedicated to the service of the temple deity for life and there is no escape for her.

The practice is prevalent in Karnataka, India and surrounding states, such as Andhra Pradesh. There are approximately 23,000 Devadasis in Karnataka today and approximately 17,000 in Andhra Pradesh. Researchers estimate that the number of Devadasis in Karnataka account, for approximately 80% of all sex workers in the area. Devadasis account for an estimated 15% of all sex workers in India.


Above, a terrified child is about to be dedicated for temple service. Each year, an estimated 5,000 young girls are brought to the festival of Yellama to be dedicated as Devadasis. On the night of the full moon in January, thousands of young girls join in a religious procession to the temple for goddess Yellamma in a remote village of Karnataka. After being dedicated, they are auctioned to the highest bidder and enter the world of prostitution.

It is impossible to overstate the particular evil this is, that in the name of god, a child is trafficked into sexual bondage, where not only their innocence is stolen, but their very conscience is torn in two as they must some how reconcile the religion they are taught and the brutalization they are experiencing. Almost every religion has these two things in common, the belief that mankind is somehow made in the image of god and the concept of personal purification through faith or ritual. How can a child ever see god as anything other than a brutal beast with an insatiable lust for innocent flesh when the men made in god's image do those things to her in god's name? And how can these madmen preach sanctity, offer atonement, when they are the ones defiling and destroying true innocence?

Please help Conspiracy Of Hope end the trafficking and sexual exploitation of children in our lifetime. And for every voiceless trokosi and devadasi child, please raise your voice with us to demand justice.

Numbers.

Some estimates are that there are 1.2 million children trafficked every year. 600,000 of those are girls, average age 13, that end up as child prostitutes.

But those are just numbers.

Numbers are not afraid to cry during the rape sessions, numbers are not afraid of the beatings they will get if they do. Numbers don't get addicted to the heroin force fed them to keep them docile, to break their will, to keep them coming back. Numbers do not have their virginity sold to the highest bidder, or have their "virginity" resold and resold and resold to the highest bidder after a surgery to "restore" that virginity. Numbers are not fed animal hormones to make them look healthy when the ravages of rape and the filth of light-less existence begin to atrophy their bodies. Numbers don't get Aids. Numbers don't get thrown out of a brothel when they do.

But children, 3200 hundred a day, 135 an hour, 2 every minute, do. They lose their childhood, their hope, their sense of justice, their will to live. What if it were your child? What if it were your little sister? I bet she has a name, bet she's not a number to you. Numbers get filed in folders, in file cabinets, between other files, and are forgotten. But you'll never forget her.

These are the real life stories of the victims of human trafficking from The Polaris Project. Their stories are unforgettable, they are the daughters, the baby sisters, the children those numbers represent, they are the statistics that suffer the most depraved of injustices. Please read their stories. Please imagine their words are your own child's, your own sisters words. Please do whatever you would do for your own child for these children. Because until we fight for them with that same passion, that same relentless resolve, they are just a number to us. And numbers have a way of being rounded down, subtracted, erased, and lost forever.

Child Prostitute in India.

Mumbai.

In Mumbai there are 19 million people. Half live in slums. In fact Mumbai is India's largest city, and has India's largest slum. The children of slum dwellers face the daily prospect of being trafficked. In Mumbai there are 100,000 children enslaved in brothels.

Mumbai is also home to India's richest man Mukesh Ambani. Ambani made the news this week by purchasing the most expensive home ever which is 27 stories high and worth £630m (over a billion dollars US).


According to the Telegraph UK "Ambani, his wife and three children have moved into the building which is named Antilia, after a mythical Island. It contains a health club with a gym and dance studio, a ballroom, countless guestrooms, a range of lounges and a 50 seat cinema. There is even an elevated garden with ceiling space to accommodate small trees. The roof has three helicopter pads and there is also underground parking for 160 cars, which will come in handy for guests at Ambani's forthcoming housewarming party. From the top floors of the 173m high (567 feet) property are spectacular views of Mumbai and of the Arabian Sea.

The 53 year-old tycoon is not only the richest man in India but the fourth richest man in the world. In total there is reported to be 37,000 square metres (almost 40 thousand square feet) of space, which is more than the Palace of Versailles. To keep it running smoothly requires 600 staff. "

It is unconscionable. It is beyond comprehension. It is heartbreaking beyond words, that so few would take so much, when so many, so very near to them, have so little. Please, please, let us make a pact to live lives that take very little and give so very, very much.

Halloween.

This year, the National Retail Federation expects Americans to spend a record $5.07 billion on costumes, cards, candy and decorations for Halloween, with the average consumer spending $64.82 compared with $59.06 a year ago.

Please join Conspiracy Of Hope in pledging to skip Halloween spending this year by not buying a costume. There are plenty of great sites with free costume ideas and designs. Take the money you would spend and donate it to an organization fighting the trafficking of children. Halloween is a celebration of childhood as much as anything else, please celebrate childhood this Halloween by giving a child their childhood back.

As always thank you for caring about justice, thank you for your passion for human rights, thank you for being a voice for the voiceless.

Relentless.

Tomorrow I will address a group of students in a human rights class about human trafficking and specifically what can be done locally to combat this evil globally. One concern the professor expressed was a growing frustration among some of the students, it seems they are somewhat overwhelmed by the hugeness of the problem and a bit disheartened as to how they can do anything of any significance to stop it.

Recently I had a chance to interview IJM's Gary Haugen. As a member of the UN’s Center For Human Rights Haugen was charged with the horrific task of gathering evidence against the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide. This included the exhumation of mass graves of tortured victims. I asked Gary how he kept from becoming desensitized to suffering?

"By relentless focus on the humanity, beauty and infinite dignity of the individual person."

I believe his answer also speaks to the helpless impotency those students and many other activists feel at times. But if we can somehow turn that answer into a lens to see this crisis through, we might once again find ourselves encouraged, emboldened, and enlivened to the cause of freedom.

For the rest of his answer to this question and for the rest of our interview with Mr. Haugen stay tuned!!! And as always...From all of us at COH...Thank you for being a voice for the voiceless.