The War On Women: Gender Based Violence And Human Trafficking

A young woman fleeing violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Soldiers and militias have been waging a war of rape and destruction against women since the 1990s. Millions have been killed. In Rwanda, up to half a million women were raped during the 1994 genocide.

According to the U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report: 2007, 80% of transnational trafficking victims are women and girls. This means generations of women systematically eradicated from society through enslavement in the sex industry. Their bodies abused into oblivion, their souls cremated in the fires of lust and greed. Girls as young as seven brutally raped in a sex industry that views females as a commodity with the very youngest girls demanding a premium for their virginity.

(Above) Sreypov Chan, at 7 the Cambodian girl was sold into slavery by her mother and raped as many as 20 times a day. The building behind her where she was enslaved. Read her incredible story here.

Worldwide, one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex, had her genitalia mutilated or been abused in some way, most often by someone she knows, including her husband or another family member; one woman in four has been abused during pregnancy. One in 5 women has been raped or the victim of an attempted rape. In many societies women are often held responsible for the violence against them, and in many places laws contain loopholes which allow the perpetrators to act with impunity. In a number of countries, a rapist can go free under the Penal Code if he proposes to marry the victim.

Child victims of Forced Genital Mutilation.

In countries with very little rule of law these percentages spiral upward at a perverse rate. When woman are afraid of violent retribution, when they lack confidence in the ability of of law to protect them, they are often silent, even complicit in the exploitation of their daughters.

A young victim of gender violence. Her burn very intentionally placed.

6 out of 10 of the world's poorest people are women and girls. All over the world women wake well before dawn to go about the day's work, sometimes walking hours in one direction just to procure water for their family. Dark roads and deranged men leave these hard working woman at great danger for violent rape or worse. In the most extreme cases of poverty, families with starving children may feel that selling one daughter to save the lives of the rest of the household is an acceptable act in light of their desperation.

Sudanese women, waking the day, busy with their work, at extreme risk for violence.

Two thirds of all children denied access to school are girls. Illiteracy, ignorance and misinformation about every topic from sex to AIDS leaves girls extremely susceptible to violent exploitation. Not to mention that when girls are educated they feel much less desperate, believing that they have the means within them and the opportunity to rise above societal norms that often view them as property, or at very least, second-class citizens.

Part of the ongoing fight to stop violence against women is the structural transformation that comes from empowering young girls through education. Above, an International Justice Mission worker teaches kids about the dangers they may face and how to avoid them.

Sati, or bride-burnings along with other dowry related deaths, take the lives of as many as 60,000 woman a year in India. A poor girl's parents cannot afford the dowry required by her fiance's parents and so she is immolated or violated in some other gruesome way. There are many misconceptions concerning the practice of Sati and even a bit of romanticism involving Hindu mythology, but call it what you will, the reality is the number of dowry deaths are on the rise.

Indian victims of bride-burning.

In nature, 105 boys are born for every 100 girls. But in India there are 112 boys born for every 100 girls. In China, 121 (with plenty of Chinese towns over the 150 mark, mostly due to the countries one child policy). Azerbaijan is at 115, Georgia at 118 and Armenia at 120.

Above, Chinese propaganda poster championing its one-child family planning policy. Below the rapid increase of female infant mortality since the inception of the policy.

In her book "Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men", Mara Hvistendahl reports on this gender imbalance. By her count, gender-based abortions over the past three decades mean there are 163 million girls missing from the world.

This horrorific trend is often rooted in poverty although certainly a function of the continuing societal prejudice against the female gender. In the the last three decades technologies which reveal the sex of a baby in-utero such as amniocentesis and ultrasound, have been used as a "sex test" in countries where parents put a premium on sons or feel they can only afford one child. "Better 500 rupees now than 5,000 later," reads one ad put out by an Indian clinic; the price of a sex test versus the cost of a dowry.

Ms. Hvistendahl predicts that such a gross gender imbalance is a harbinger of very bad things to come. And rightly so, as Columbia economics professor Lena Edlund corroborates: "The greatest danger associated with prenatal sex determination is...that a significant group of the world's women will end up being stolen or sold from their homes and forced into prostitution or marriage."

Child bride in Afghanistan. Cultural prerogative or child abuse? As the number of females decrease, the number of girls who are forced or sold into marriage will certainly increase.

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If you have ever loved a girl, ever stood knees knocking stomach fluttering on the precipice of romance, ever stared tenderly into your daughter's eyes, ever benefited from the nurturing love of a mother or grandmother- then raise your voice today for women. And if you are a woman please stand in solidarity with your sisters. Please support International Justice Mission as they rescue girls from the sex trade, as they fight for widow's rights, as they educate young girls of the risks of exploitation that surround them. Please support My Refuge House as they restore the battered broken lives of the victims of sex trafficking. Give generously to organizations like Samaritan's Purse and Respire Haiti that work tirelessly to end poverty and rescue those most at risk. Please remember, this is a fight for the soul of humanity.This is the fight for the future of us all.

Silence is complicity. Please be a voice for the voiceless.

Barefoot For Father's Day.

Right now, a population of children, the size of the USA, are walking around without shoes. This year one million of them will die from illnesses contracted from being barefoot. As they say, imagine the world to be 100 people in a room, 40 would have no shoes, almost half of those would be kids.

(Above and Below) Children on city dumps, some at play, most foraging for scraps of food, all of them shoe-less.

Boys in Ghana, sold by their parents into slavery in the fishing industry. Their bare feet susceptible to many water borne diseases.

Today is Father's Day. To that end I thought I'd mow my dad's yard. Thing is, his yard's about 3 acres and it's hitting a hundred degrees everyday. Oh and did I mention his riding lawnmower is busted....

So about 4:30 p.m. on Friday, temperature hovering about 98 degrees and heat index in the 110s, I got dad's push-mower from where he keeps it under the trailer and filled it with gas. Then I thought of the children, the shoe-less children, and I decided to mow in my bare feet. Now this was less about some defiant act of solidarity and more because I cannot really imagine their lives, their daily allotment of sorrow and needless suffering. They say you can't understand a man (or child) until you walk a mile in their shoes....I suppose the opposite holds true too. So shoe-less I mowed.

After an hour, with soles full of briers and stone bruises and two rather nasty little puncture wounds I thought, "it's time to put my shoes on." But of course that's not really an option for the 300+ million shoe-less children of the world. So I willed myself on for another half hour until dark was approaching and the yard not going to get mowed unless I made better time. So I put on my shoes and double-timed it til dusk.

A few of the crop circles I did while mowing...

Later as I scrubbed the dried dirt off of my feet, cleaned my scrapes and gouges, and sat tired on my parents couch, I pondered the life of the modern child slave and this blessed life we've been given. The luxury of a bath, the decadence of soap, the impossible comfort of that couch, and I was sad, so desperately sad for the shoe-less kids.

Child with Podoconiosis, a disease contracted from absorption of silica particles into bare feet.

I'm so thankful for my dad. I remember a pair of soccer shoes he bought me in high school that easily cost him a day's wages. And I remember his face in the stands each match even after a 12 hour workday. I am surely blessed. Happy Father's Day dad.

And for the kids, here are some great organizations that provide shoes:

Of course Tom's. Where a pair of new shoes is donated for every pair purchased, a million so far.

Soles4Souls. Where as little as a dollar provides a pair of shoes for a child and where recycled shoes can live again and even give life. 15 million shoes and counting!

Share Your Soles. In 1999, SYS founder Mona Purdy traveled through Central America, and saw children painting tar on the soles of their bare feet so they could run a race during their village's festival. She happened to meet an American orthopedic surgeon who was visiting the village. He told Mona that if these children had shoes to wear, there would be a lot less need for him to regularly travel to the region to perform amputations of children's infected limbs. Since then SYS has donated well over 1 million pairs of shoes.

So, for all you dad's out there, Happy Father's Day from COH!! And for those of you that have lost your dad, or never knew him, you are dear to our hearts and in our prayers this Father's Day weekend. And for the 163 million orphans in the world, those with shoes and those without. Let us all be their fathers, their mothers, the family they have been denied.

World Day Against Child Labor 2011

In a modern age where days should be ones of celebration, once again we find ourselves forced to reckon with the evils humanity is capable of, once again we commemorate the worst of exploitations, today is World Day Against Child Labor. The International Labor Organization estimates that there are still 215 million children engaged in illegal labor, with half being in the worst forms of slave labor. This includes, but is of course not limited to, the sex trade, child soldiering, bonded labor and the illegal drug trade. The text of their new report.

Like most forms of child exploitation, illegal child labor is born from the womb of poverty. Many children are forced to work solely for their family or for themselves to survive. Many children will not eat if they don't work. And of course this type of desperation gives greed and evil ample opportunity for the most egregious forms exploitation.

Please let your voice be heard today and everyday for the innocent victims of illegal labor. Please make sure the products you consume are slave labor free. Ask your congressmen to support the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. Please live simply and give whatever you can to legitimate organizations that fight poverty. Inform yourself. There are also many informative and inspiring videos on the ILO's YouTube page. From all of us at COH, thank you for defending the defenseless. Thank you for being a voice for the voiceless. Thank you for helping organizations like International Justice Mission give justice for the oppressed and exploited.

Child Prostitute in Ghana

iPhone: The "P" is for Prostitution.

Apple has now approved an app for their iPhone that provides customers who have money easy access to registered desperate participants who have financial woes and functional sex organs. Geez.




As if the struggle to stem the tide of the sexual objectification and exploitation of girls and women isn't hard enough without Apple recklessly endorsing this app. No way that pimps will use this, no chance that child traffickers will create false profiles and facilitate child rape for profit.

Sex for sale. Sugar Sugar, where "Romance meets Finance."

Here is the original story from Digital life by Rosa Golijan:

After June 1, it'll be possible to hire a prostitute using an iPhone app.

According to ZDNet, dating service Sugar Sugar has managed to get Apple to grant its app a spot in the App Store. The curious thing about this news is that Sugar Sugar is not an ordinary dating service. Instead of putting together people who are simply seeking traditional relationships, it links up sugar daddies — wealthy men who are willing to shower young women with money, gifts, and other compensation in exchange for companionship — and their so-called sugar babies.

In more blunt terms: The service helps prostitutes and their clients connect. We've certainly heard about such services in the past — WhatsYourPrice.com, Craigslist's darker corners, and an assortment of shady "dating" websites come to mind — but Sugar Sugar's app is headed to Apple's App Store, a place known for its strict guidelines and approval process: The SugarSugar Dating App will be available for download on June 1st through SugarSugar.com and iTunes, and will be compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Android, and BlackBerry devices. The app will use GPS technology to instantly identify those seeking ‘mutually beneficial’ arrangements within the user’s vicinity. After ‘checking in, the application will map out the profiles of nearby members. Users will be able to trade stats, show photos or send messages to arrange an effortless rendezvous.

We don't really know how on earth the app slipped through the App Store approval process. After all, there are several Apple "guidelines" which should've prevented it from getting a seal of approval. Among them:

16.1 Apps that present excessively objectionable or crude content will be rejected

18.1 Apps containing pornographic material, defined by Webster's Dictionary as "explicit descriptions or displays of sexual organs or activities intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings", will be rejected

18.2 Apps that contain user generated content that is frequently pornographic (ex "Chat Roulette" apps) will be rejected

22.1 Apps must comply with all legal requirements in any location where they are made available to users. It is the developer's obligation to understand and conform to all local laws

22.3 Apps that solicit, promote, or encourage criminal or clearly reckless behavior will be rejected

Given that there are three guidelines which the Sugar Sugar app nearly violates, one which it might violate in some locales, and one which it most certainly violates by promoting prostitution — behavior which qualifies as criminal in many places — we'd assume that Apple would flat out reject it right away. But here we are — a few weeks away from the app's debut."


Please let Apple know this is unacceptable. You can do that here. Please ask them to put women and children above profit. Because until companies like Apple do, women and children will be for profit, and sold to the highest bidder.

Megan Boudreaux Fights For The Heart Of Haiti, One Child At A Time.

The images that came out of Haiti after last year’s earthquake were heart-rending, the devastation was complete. 230,000 dead, and the newly homeless numbering close to a million.

A fraction of the dead in Haiti's capitol city Port-au-Prince after the 2010 earthquake.

Almost instantly stories of displaced children and the tens of thousands of new orphans began to cover the web pages and blogs of the NGO’s and anyone with a humanitarian bent. Children, who days before had at least some semblance of a life, now were at high risk of being stolen, sold, or worse. But a year later the world has had another giant earthquake, the media has replaced images of Haiti and her children with a Royal wedding and trumped up pictures of dead terrorists. The talk around the office is gas prices and scaled back summer vacations and yet there are those that labor on, that are ceaseless in their resolve. Those like Louisiana native Megan Boudreaux. Conspiracy Of Hope interviewed Megan about the orphan crisis in Haiti and her organization, Respire Haiti's response to it. Through inexhaustible tenderness, food programs and education, Respire Haiti helps stem the tide of hopelessness in the beleaguered nation of Haiti.

Megan Boudreaux and Michaelle Dimanche.

In his book “A Crime So Monstrous” E. Benjamin Skinner decides to see how long it will take him to leave New York, get to Haiti and buy a child slave. I think it took him about 7 hours to get to the transaction point. Of course he didn’t buy the child but he could have. How much child trafficking goes on in and around Gressier and in Haiti in general?

Unfortunately, in a country where there is a population of 9 million people and there are nearly 1 million orphans, there is lots of exploitation of children. After the earthquake it was estimated that between 25 and 100 children were crossing the border to the Dominican Republic EVERY DAY! Many of the children came from the largest slum in Haiti, City Soleil. It’s only a matter of minutes when a young woman and her baby walk into City Soleil, before someone is offering to buy her child. Sadly, because SO many of these children lack paperwork and proper documentation, they are easily trafficked without people even knowing they are gone. I firmly believe we will never have a real number on how many children have been trafficked from Haiti in the past.

City Soleil, Haiti's largest slum

Restaveks are child servants, either orphans or children sent by impoverished families to work in the homes of strangers. Is this just a gray area of child labor- a part of Haitian culture that offends our western sensibilities- or is this very real slavery and wholesale child abuse?

The Restavek situation in Haiti is very troubling and sadly somewhat hidden. It is and has been part of Haitian culture so sometimes it is hard to uncover the child’s situation, but it is very real slavery and on several levels includes child abuse. The answer to the Restavek crisis in Haiti is not punishing the people who are enslaving these children, the answer is education. Educating the families who are giving their children away to people who tell them they will “have a better life”, and also educating the populace about recognizing Restaveks in their own neighborhoods and communities. To me, the Restavek problem is a solvable one with education and participation from the Haitian people and government. Many Haitians are actually shocked when they find out that their children or children they know are not taken away to be educated but are rather taken away and enslaved. With a number like 300,000 or more Restaveks it can be overwhelming, but I believe that through the Church in Haiti and through education, this situation can be solved.

Respire Haiti in Gressier's mountainous region is "away from the chaos and pollution of Port-au-Prince and Carrefour."

You make a great deal about these numbers: 163 million orphans in the world, 33 million children with AIDS, 1 billion people live on less than $1.00 a day, 800 million people won’t eat today, 300 million of them are kids….These are statistics that should shock us but so many times they fall on deaf ears, hard hearts…especially in the church….why?

Sadly, I have met many people who are shocked by these numbers yet continue their life undisturbed. Many people have the idea that it’s someone else’s responsibility to “fix this”. The truth is that God has called us ALL to be the Voice for the Voiceless and Fight for the Fatherless. I think that much of the American Church is so preoccupied with THEIR churches and THEIR numbers, that they forget that Jesus tells us, “Our life is not our own.” We should be more concerned with others, especially suffering children, then ourselves.




Please explain the name Respire Haiti? What it is? What you do?

Respire means to Breathe in Creole and in French. The name was chosen for two reasons: 1- because of our location in the mountainous area away from the chaos and pollution of Port au Prince and Carrefour. And 2- after Genesis where God talks about breathing life into each person. Our mission statement is to empower, encourage and educate orphans and vulnerable children in Gressier. We want EVERY child to know that their identity is in Christ as a Child of God and that GOD breathed life into each of them. We want them to KNOW that they were created with a purpose and they are not forgotten.

We currently have a school with 97 children, ages 5-17 (Grades 1st-5th). Since 50% of the children in Gressier are not in school, there are TONS more children who still need to be enrolled. Therefore, one of our goals is to encourage children to go to school and to help their parents realize the importance of education. For this reason, we are in the process of building a new school for over 300 children.




Additionally, we have free English classes throughout Gressier, this helps to educate and empower those children and adults who can’t afford to take classes. Also, each Saturday morning we have a bible study where we feed about 350 children and then we have another activity Saturday afternoon where we feed 300 different children.

Megan serving food from the back of the Tap-Tap, a Haitian term for utility truck or bus.

Our goal is to create a effective and Christ-like way of educating children to know their identity in Christ and also give them the opportunity for education that will help them sustain their community and their families.

Saturdays! Food, fun and fellowship on Megan's mountain. The Tap-Tap lurks in the background.

What are Respires greatest needs, greatest challenges?

First, our greatest need is ALWAYS prayer. God gave me this vision to start this non-profit with putting one child in school and only enough money to pay her $225 school fee. Now in only 5 short months, Respire Haiti supports over 1,000 children throughout the Gressier community through education, feeding programs, simple medical care and English classes.

Our greatest challenge is helping families who have Restaveks realize the importance of letting us put them in school, and through that, educating the family about the importance of equality and loving ALL children the way Christ does.

How bad was/is the devastation in Gressier from last January’s earthquake?

The damage in Gressier is immense. Gressier is only a few miles from the epicenter of the earthquake. It’s estimated that 70-75% of all of the buildings in Gressier crumbled, but even that number doesn’t include the houses and buildings that were damaged in the quake.




Although the devastation was bad, the most disheartening part is that there are still thousands of people living in tents in Gressier, and there is little help for those who need assistance in repairing their houses.

Being from South Louisiana, do you feel a special connection with Haiti’s common Creole heritage? Are there any unique similarities between the two cultures?

Growing up in South Louisiana we had always heard about “Creole” and even ate some Creole food, but really the Haitian Creole Culture is quite different then the Louisiana Creole culture we have in Southern Louisiana. The most obvious similarity between the two are the foods, in Louisiana we eat a lot of rice and beans and so do Haitians.

Megan finds a friendly face and familiar shirt far from Louisiana.

You quote Mother Theresa a good bit. Is she one of your heroes?

Yes, she definitely is. Her tireless effort to love the unwanted, forgotten and abandoned is inspirational and her walk with Christ even through uncertainty is an amazing role model of faith.

Mother Teresa's heart and hands were always holding an orphan close.

In one of your blog posts is the Mother Theresa quote. “When you don’t have anything, then you have everything.” Did you find it freeing to leave the bulk of your possessions behind? What do you miss the most? When you come back to the states for a visit is it culture shock in reverse after living without in Haiti?

I definitely found it freeing to sell everything and leave the rest behind, even though it was difficult (having a house sale and seeing people pick through my stuff), when it was all said and done I felt like a burden had been lifted. I don’t really “miss” any of my possessions, but I did have the realization of missing simple pleasures such as hot showers (or even running water), washing machines, internet, etc. (But really the thing I miss the most is Starbucks Coffee haha) When I come back to the states for a visit it is really overwhelming. It’s hard to enter the land of plenty after only an hour and a half flight from a land of nothing.

An hour and a half flight from the Land of Plenty, the "REAL World consists of people searching for clean water and struggling to find food for their families."

Your deep love for the people of Gressier, especially the orphans is evident in everything you write and do. And your passion bleeds through especially when mincing no words about the church’s responsibility for the poor and for orphans. What will it take for the church’s heart to break with what breaks God’s heart?

I think continuing to raise awareness and share information about the orphan crisis is the first step for the churches’ eyes to be opened and their hearts to be broken. The Church is so very consumed with what they see every day, it’s easy to have the idea that “Our World” what we see every day IS “The World” , but in actuality, “the real world” is not worried about what they’ll wear to dinner or where they will go on vacation….the REAL World consists of people searching for clean water and struggling to find food for their families.

Respire Haiti shirts!! Buy them HERE!!

You seem to stay broken-hearted a lot, your writing certainly seems to reveal that. How do you keep from drowning in a flood of despair?

I always tell God, the day I am not broken-hearted anymore by the poverty, hurt and pain in Gressier, is the day I need to leave. I never want to become numb to what I see or what I hear about in Haiti. This CAN be a draining way of life and experience to constantly pray that my heart would be broken for what breaks Gods, but I KNOW that this is how God wants us to live, seeing things through his eyes and loving people the way Jesus did and does. What keeps me afloat is knowing that Jesus is with me every step of the way, and knowing that I am completely inadequate, weak and scared, but Christ is the one who makes me adequate, strong and courageous. So short answer is Jesus (and funny answer is singing, I sing A LOT when I feel overwhelmed in Gressier. I feel like it brings me back to the place where Jesus is in charge)

You wrote in one of your first blog posts that orphans change you, you called it being “Blessed with a burden”, and named your blog that. Would you share one story of a particular orphan who changed you the most and how?

Actually, the reason I named my blog “Blessed with a burden” was because of a particular little girl I met in Gressier. Her name is Michaelle Dimanche.




I met her back in December on the mountaintop in Gressier when she was throwing rocks into the sky, as I approached her and asked her why she was throwing rocks she said she was throwing them at the bird. She said she was hungry and she was going to eat it. After that I was a bit rocked by her response and was drawn to her so I began asking about her life a little bit and found out that her mother died and her dad didn’t claim her, so she was living with a Caregiver on the side of the mountaintop. Michaelle was 7 years old and had not yet been to school, so the day after I met her I put her in school and I saw Michaelle beginning to change. In the last 6 months I have seen Michaelle go from a hardened, fearful and angry little girl, to the most gentle, loving and happy 8 year old. God has used Respire Haiti to remold her (and the people she lives with) life. After meeting Michaelle Dimanche, I knew that there were plenty of children out there just like her and this was what God called Respire Haiti to do in Gressier.

What is the Creole word for Freedom?

Freedom: Libète

What about for Conspiracy Of Hope?

Konspirasyon Espwa

Anything you’d like to add?

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to share what God is doing in Gressier and through Respire Haiti. I believe it is SO important to continue to raise awareness and fight for these children, because We are ALL called to FIGHT for these Children of God.

Thanks!!

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Every once in awhile there comes along a person of such faith and devotion to humble service that you forget to be jaded, you forget to be cynical, and in that moment you realize what is real and what is worth fighting for. Megan is such a person. We hope you fell in love with her and Michaelle and their lovely mountain in Gressier like we did.

And we hope that you will fall in love with Haiti, her orphans, and Respire Haiti as they fight for Haiti's forgotten, as they raise their voice for Haiti's voiceless. Please support them with the full force of your prayers and the depth of your generosity. You can donate directly to Respire Haiti here.

And as always from all of us at Konspirasyon Espwa, thank you for being a Voice for the Voiceless.

Mother Teresa In Her Own Words.

Her real name was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. She was born August 26, 1910 in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia. She devoted her life to helping the poor, sick and orphaned in India.



She lived her words, "Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work."



She lived her religion, "At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done. We will be judged by "I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless, and you took me in."




Upon receiving a Nobel Prize in 1979 she said "I choose the poverty of our poor people. But I am grateful to receive (the Nobel) in the name of the hungry, the naked, the homeless, of the crippled, of the blind, of the lepers, of all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared-for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone."



MT realized that sometimes the problem seems so devastatingly large that we quit before we try. She reminded us, "If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one."