Human trafficking in missionary contexts

Human Trafficking

In October of 2007, 30 nuns from 26 countries, whose congregations have members in various Asian countries, met in Rome to discuss the trafficking of women and children in India and other parts of Asia. They formed the International Network of Religious against Trafficking in Persons. Seventy-four million South Asian women have been reported missing and 20 million are said to be working in Indian brothels (Glatz, 2007). These nuns are only one of a growing number of religious organizations that are lending their resources to combat the horrors of human trafficking.

Throughout history, missionaries and other religious groups have worked continuously on this human atrocity.

When one hears the word "slavery," it brings to mind the blacks in the United States who were brought from Africa to work on the plantations in the 1700s. However, slavery, also known as "human trafficking," has been happening throughout human history. For example, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, thousands of women were taken from Eastern Europe with promises of a better life and sent to South America as prostitutes for white slave trade.

Today, this is a growing problem. As Tran (2007, p.22) notes: "Those who want to make lots of money and don't care about breaking the law to do it have three main options: they can deal in drugs, deal in guns or deal in humans beings. Of these dubious but lucrative businesses, trafficking in humans is the fastest growing." It is estimated that the number of slaves in the world is somewhere between 12 million (United Nations figure) and 27 million (the figure by Kevin Bales, president of Free the Slaves, an organization committed to ending global slavery). The Vatican declared in 2007 that human trafficking in this time is a greater scourge than the transatlantic slave trade of the 18th century. The problem has not bypassed the U.S. By any means. Ironically, the countries where sexual slavery is most objectionable tend to be the largest destination locations. The CIA estimates that at least 17,500 women and children are trafficked into the U.S. each year, though other reports put the number up to 50,000. The UN's Trafficking in Persons report listed the U.S., Nigeria, Romania, China and Thailand, among the top 11 destination countries.

The conditions that make human trafficking easy and very profitable arise wherever the demand for unprotected labor is overshadowed by the wealth and greed of those who pay for it. Such a situation produces the combination of desperation of the worker and profiteering by the slave trader. Says Stefano Volpicelli, who for years studied and fought slavery: "Trafficking is not born from the minds of inherently malicious individuals whose only aspiration is to harm and degrade women. Without excusing vile behavior, it is a phenomenon in which both victim and perpetrator are born from the same scourge of utter desperation" (Tran, 2007, p. 22)

In the late 1990s this growing problem gained increasing visibility, and local and national governments, international bodies like the United Nations, USAID and nongovernmental organizations began to commit significant amounts resources to address this growing human rights catastrophe. The UN's approach is based on the "Three Ps": Prevention, Prosecution and Protection. Since trafficking often involves trickery, prevention includes creative ways of warning potential victims. Ukrainian movie stars have acted in popular videos to warn people about this issue. Nations such as India have grown increasingly aware of slavery, and local religious communities utilize local channels to raise awareness and provide protection for women and children.

As is always the case throughout history, religious organizations have become involved with any form of slavery. The International Network of Religious against Trafficking in Persons that was formed in 2007 has chapters throughout the world.

In 2007, David Busch of ABC Radio National interviewed several religious leaders about the trafflicking problem. Pauline Coll of Brisbane, a Good Samaritan sister, coordinates Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking of Humans, ACRATH. This is a large national network of Catholic religious orders dedicated to anti-trafficking. Coll noted that a several recent catalysts motivated the religious orders to take action. In 2001 and 2004, international leaders of 800 congregations of Catholic women declared the trafficking of women as a global priority for their one million members and orders worldwide began to mobilize.

Also being interviewed by Busch (2007) was Louise Cleary of Melbourne, most recently world leader of the Brigidine sisters and founder of ACRATH. Cleary explained that the Brigidine sisters have an asylum seekers project that mainly ministers to young men. In Melbourne and Sydney, the sisters became aware that there were small groups of women arriving, as well. The women would be in the detention center one week and then gone in a week or ten days later. When beginning to question the men at the shelter, they found that the women were being picked up in raids. The nuns found that that they had been brought into the country against their will. Another person interviewed was Commander Paul Moulds of Sydney who oversees the Salvation Army's street outreach programs.Molds said that the Salvation Army, too, started becoming aware of this problem in Australia as well through their other programs: "In almost every capital city the Salvation Army is running street-based outreach programs, and I think there is a new understanding that some of the people that we meet -- and we're talking to girls standing on street corners, we're talking to prostitutes...are in fact trafficked people.

Margaret Ng a nun and working with the Josephite Counter-Trafficking Project in Sydney explained that it is not easy to reach those who need help. "And one of them actually said, 'How do I know you can be trusted? How do I know that you're not from the brothel owner?' So I refer her onto the other detainees and also speak about my going there before they even arrived, and this helps to allay their fears." If there time, they are offered a safe non-judgemental environment to tell their story. Ng continued: "If we are talking about relieving suffering and bringing hope, at least it's good to be able to open to them the phase of acceptance for who they are and not what they have done, and acceptance of their self-worth....A deeper understanding of who they are and that they are good, and that this will help them to survive whatever trauma has been part of their being trafficked" (Busch, 2007)

According to its website, the Catholic overseas aid and development agency Caritas International has locations among other locations in Nepal, Philippines, Thailand and Cambodia. They focus on areas where it sees that poverty and cultural factors have lead to a lack of value being placed on girls and women. Caritas International has identified four major areas for action against trafficking that are suited to its modes of action; prevention, assistance, advocacy and networking. Likewise, the Sisters of Good Shepherd has a ministry in 14 Asian countries. For example, the sisters in Taiwan work with at-risk youth to prevent sexual exploitation and prostitution. The organization runs five small group homes to help victims of sexual exploitation to recover and reintegrate. They also conduct group counseling to victims of trafficking

The stories are in every country. When Moon was 12 weeks old in Burma, her birth mother sold her to a local woman, who raised her like a slave. When she was three, this second "mother" forced her to wash dishes in a restaurant eight hours a day. When Moon turned 13, the woman sold her virginity to a Western businessman in Thailand, but she fought free. A few months later, her second mother blocked the hotel room door after an Indian man paid $800. Moon was then beaten until she submitted to sex. She was carried home and could not walk for10 days. A year later, across the border in northern Thailand, the same woman tricked Moon into working at a noodle stand that was a brothel. When Moon refused to comply with her first customer, the owner taped her hands to the bed. The second night, 15 men used her; the next night, 9; the next, 11. (Jewell, 2007, p. 28).

The johns included men from Thailand, Myanmar, Japan, Korea, India, and the West. The owner's brother, a policeman, drugged Moon and 10 other captive girls to keep them awake at night. They were threatened with cigarette burns and beatings. The police were paid off and also had sex with the girls. Moon tried to escape, but the woman owner and her brothers locked her in her room and kept an armed vigil at the brothel. Moon stated: "I cursed every god. But in my heart, I believed someone would come and help me" (Jewell, 2007, p. 28).

After nearly a month in the brothel, the police and International Justice Mission, an evangelical ministry, rescued her. Since that time four years ago, missionaries Mark and Christa Crawford have introduced Moon to Jesus and tried to help her earn a decent living -- a challenge for someone without marketable skills. Moon stated that since the Crawfords entered her life, "I have realized that I have value and worth. And now that I know God, I can always pray for his help whenever I have a problem." The Crawfords are among a growing number of Christians worldwide working to live out the love of Jesus by reaching out to sexually exploited people. The Crawfords decided to move to Thailand after a short-term mission trip to Asia. Christa, a graduate of Harvard Law School, was dissatisfied with corporate law and had been providing legal aid at the Union Gospel Mission in Los Angeles. Mark had been leading an expanding multiethnic church and pursuing a master's degree at Fuller Theological Seminary to prepare to minister to prostituting women. (Jewell, 2007, p. 28).

When Kerry Hilton moved from New Zealand to India with his family in 2000, he was amazed when seeing 6,000 women and girl prostitutes on the streets of Kolkata, Calcutta. Over 2 million girls and women are believed to make up India's sex industry -- and prostitution sales totaled $4.1 million a day in 2004. Hilton, who traveled to India for this reason but was completely overwhelmed about what to do, decided if business put them into the sex industry why could it not put them out -- and help them also find Jesus? He drew up a business plan, rented a building surrounded by brothels and hired 20 women who wanted to escape prostitution. Hilton's wife, Annie, trained the women in a couple months to sew 30 jute bags a day. Today, 70 former prostitutes work from 10 a.M. To 7 P.M. At Freeset, sewing 100,000 tote and gift bags a year. The bags are marketed globally, many custom-designed for the Christian conference market. Hilton says he is not just rescuing women, because they are also transforming the community. They pray daily at Freeset and meet in prayer cells each once a week (Jewell, 2007, p. 28).

A similar business is established in Cambodia by Swiss Christian businessman Pierre Tami. He left the airline industry in 1994 to start Hagar Cambodia, a shelter and rehabilitation center in Phnom Penh for women and children. Tami started three prosperous businesses with help of professional staff and the World Bank's private sector entity, the International Finance Corporation -- soy milk, sewing silk products, and cooking/catering -- to provide employment for women and support their families. Last year, Hagar Catering gave almost half its profits to the ministry. Woods, a businessman and volunteer who is now paid by a local church in Australia, shows the women in Hagar Catering how God can help them in their daily lives through acts of Christlike compassion and justice. He explains that "We don't use these tragedies to be Bible-bashers. We journey together with them, with love and compassion, to find the injustices and speak up on their behalf in very practical terms" (Jewell, 2007, p. 28).

Those who are helping these women and children come from a variety of backgrounds and religions. Many became involved in the early 1990s. The split of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and the growing globalization have added considerably to how many individuals are trafficked annually. In Europe and America, awareness grew when police exposed a number of major sex-trafficking rings. Conservative Christians and Jews spoke out for enslaved southern Sudanese. Some American donors paid to free Sudanese slaves. In 1992, Orthodox Jewish businessman Charles Jacobs read that in Sudan just about anyone with $20 could buy a black woman as a slave. He became co-founder of the American Anti-Slavery Group, which raises awareness about slavery, especially in Mauritania and Sudan (Deann, 2007, pg. 31).

In 1997, lawyer Gary Haugen, after assisting in the U.N. investigation of genocide in Rwanda, founded International Justice Mission, which sponsors rescue raids of sex slaves in South Asia. In 1998, Laura Lederer, a human-rights activist, assembled a coalition of faith-based, human-rights, and feminist groups to raise awareness of human trafficking in the same area.. The National Association of Evangelicals sent a policy representative, Lisa Thompson. The coalition kept grew to add other groups including:

1) World Vision, which works through the Child of War Center, Gulu, Uganda, a project that rehabilitates child soldiers; 2) Shared Hope International, a not-for-profit that former Congresswoman Linda Smith of Washington State founded, rescues and rehabilitates women caught in sex trafficking; 3) Project Rescue, a program associated with Teen Challenge and the Assemblies of God, helps enslaved women and children in India and Nepal; 4) Anti-Slavery International from Britain lobbies governments, supports research, educates the public on slavery, and runs rehabilitation and liberation projects; 5) the Salvation Army develops services for trafficking victims and presses for greater local church involvement and public policy reform; 6) Concerned Women for America raises awareness among Christian women and pushes for strong enforcement of existing laws against sex trafficking.

Seven years ago, Sandy Shepherd in Texas got a call from her Deacon Neal Choate of the First Baptist Church. He said that the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) had just arrested seven Zambian boys, who were part of a touring choir First Baptist had hosted. Choate said the boys needed a place to stay or they would spend the night in jail and asked her to house all seven overnight. For the last two years, Shepherd had been fighting battles for this group, not knowing that she and her church were being duped. A Baptist missionary, Keith Grimes, had recruited the boys to tour