Human Trafficking In The News 12-09-2012

Stories of human trafficking, sexual exploitation, modern slavery and human rights abuse in the news. Click the bold titles for a link to the complete story. And as always thank you for caring about justice, for being a voice for the voiceless, for not ignoring the great evils of our day and doing something about it. Thank you!

My current home state of Mississippi received an embarrassing and unacceptable "D" in their efforts (or apparently lack there of) in combatting human trafficking. 17 other states failed. See how your state did below. A special thanks to Shared Hope International for their tireless efforts to call the US to accountability bout this crime of crimes.

Shared Hope International has released their 2012 State by State report card grading each state on their commitment and accomplishments in fighting human trafficking within their borders. Follow the link and click on your state to see the grade they received.

Music and entertainment icon MTV is training young people in Southeast Asia to use social media to raise awareness about human trafficking.  It is part of a global campaign to end the practice and event organizers and participants say social media amplifies the message. 

Actress Mira Sorvino (below) on Thursday called upon a crowd of 200 state legislators to take the lead in battling human trafficking, telling them they were on the front lines of the fight against “modern-day slavery” and repeatedly singling out Wyoming as the only state in the country that has failed to tackle the issue.

Friday President Obama signed Senator John Cornyn's Child Protection Act of 2012 into law. The aim is to take a more aggressive stance against sexual exploitation and human trafficking. In a press release from the attorney general's office, Senator Cornyn is quoted as saying, "We need to provide law enforcement with every tool they need to crack down on the most vile criminals ... And protect the innocent young people who fall victim to these heinous crimes."

President Obama today signing into law the Child Protection Act of 2012 (H.R. 6063), a bipartisan, bicameral bill authored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) to better protect children from sexual predators. Chairman Smith, along with other supporters of the bill, joined the President at a signing ceremony at the White House.

From the Washington Times: some visible signs that may be used to help identify victims of human trafficking and questions that law enforcement, medical personnel, school and shelter personnel, and even the general public can use to help to identify victims of human trafficking.  Recognizing that someone has been trafficked can be the first step in saving their life.

And finally, last but not least, a great way for you to turn your passion for justice into the reality of freedom this Holiday Season!!

International Justice Mission's 2012 Gift catalog. For just a few dollars you can help give a child or a whole family the gift of freedom. Please let your generosity match the horror that you feel that these evils can even exist in today's society. Thank you!

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.

Canary in a Coalmine

Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase 'canary in a coal mine'. It’s a miner’s term. Canaries were once regularly used in coal mining as an early warning system. When toxic gases such as carbon monoxide and methane would build up in the mine, it would kill the bird before affecting the miners. And subsequently, because canaries tend to sing much of the time, they provided an audible cue as well as the visual. Hence, the phrase 'canary in a coal mine' is frequently used to refer to a person or thing which serves as an early warning of a coming crisis.

That phrase has always haunted the halls of my mind. It moves about in the shadows, a specter that never speaks, passes effortlessly through the walls of memory and leaves me always with a sense of foreboding. That is until this morning; Until it spoke, ghostlike and grim….

Children.

Children are the canary in the coal mine. They are the weak who are ever suffering exploitation by the powerful. In a very real sense, children predict the future. It is because they are the future. And when any society devalues their children they destroy themselves. When a child is free, free to be a child, that child laughs and plays and sings. But when a child is enslaved, that singing stops. All over the world evil men and women traffick children into the very real mines of brothels, brick kilns, and battlefields. Send them there to do what they won’t put themselves in harm’s way to do. And all over the world, every 2 minutes, a million times a year, frozen by fear in the throat of one more child, a song stops.

The crisis has come.

Please help Conspiracy of Hope end the enslavement and sexual exploitation of children in our lifetime.