Posted on September 19, 2008 - by Frank

Human Trafficking - My Journey Begins

Human trafficking has well and truly captured my attention and I know it’s not an issue that is going to go away, so here begins my journey into one of the darkest issues facing our world today.

There is a popular saying - “knowledge is power” - as if knowledge provides some kind of ruling force that allows us to exert influence over others, but allow me to once and for all rephrase this rather self serving line so that it better serves humanity - “knowledge creates responsibility” - feel free to quote that.

Let me explain. In my world, with the issues I focus on, knowledge does not act as some force I can manipulate to subjugate others; it does the exact opposite. In my world, increased knowledge leaves me knowing about things that I must act on, it endows me with a sense of responsibility and that responsibility involves serving others rather than ruling them with a form of power. Knowledge of human trafficking inevitably creates such a responsibility. Once one has a working knowledge of human trafficking, we become endowed with a responsibility to act.

Take this warning - if you would rather live in blissful ignorance of the world around you and don’t want to get your hands dirty; if you don’t want to turn over the shiny rock that is your life and your image of the world to see the disgusting filth that dwells underneath; if you don’t want to shed tears over broken lives; if you don’t want to live with that constant nagging that you could and should do more; if you want to leave this site feeling good about where you’re at and you don’t want the baggage of feeling like you have a responsibility to sacrifice your life in service, read no further. Click here, move away and never return, because I am going to keep coming back to this issue and my prayer is that if you keep reading, you will be compelled to do something - anything. If you don’t want that compulsion then just move on with a smile on your face. I don’t know who you are, so there’s no way I can hold it against you. This is your last chance to carry on and act like you saw nothing. If that’s you, thanks for stopping by.

For the rest of you, how many of you can relate to the following? I have had many times when I wished I had been born in another era. In the past I wished I had been born in those times when history was being shaped. I sometimes wish I had been around when William Wilberforce was working to abolish legal slavery so I could have stood up, signed the petitions and been a voice for a cause. What about Nazi Germany? Sometimes I wish I could have been there to smuggle Jews out of the country - then there was the 60’s and 70’s, with civil rights in the U.S, revolution in Cuba, the Vietnam war - all causes that the average citizen could raise their voice about.

I witnessed the collapse of the Berlin wall, but I wasn’t really old enough to “get it”. Sometimes I wish I had been around then as the person I am now, around for the momentous moments in history so I could have been a part of shaping humanity. If you have romanticized about history in the same way I have and longed for a cause you could champion, an issue you could become a part of that would shape the world for generations to come then let me tell you now, that issue exists and its scope is global. That issue is human trafficking.

Slavery has changed since one of my heroes, William Wilberforce, instigated a ban on the legal trade in human beings for forced labour. Humanity has become cheaper to purchase; in many instances, cheaper than cattle. Cheap product is expendable. Shipping human beings illegally has never been easier or quicker. Purchasing humans has never been simpler and situations where people may be willing to sell their children or themselves have never been more rife. All these factors lead to human trafficking being a very profitable industry. Demand and supply exists and thrives, and as long as these two factors are in place in the market, human trafficking will continue to plague us and grow.

For a quick definition of human trafficking, we turn to Wikipedia:

Human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, harbouring, or receipt of people for the purposes of slavery, forced labor (including bonded labor or debt bondage) and servitude. The total annual revenue for trafficking in persons is estimated to be between $5 billion and $9 billion. The Council of Europe states that “[p]eople trafficking has reached epidemic proportions over the past decade, with a global annual market of about $42.5 billion.” Trafficking victims typically are recruited using coercion, deception, fraud, the abuse of power, or outright abduction. Threats, violence, and economic leverage such as debt bondage can often make a victim consent to exploitation.

Exploitation includes forcing people into prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs. For children, exploitation may also include forced prostitution, illicit international adoption, trafficking for early marriage, or recruitment as child soldiers, beggars, for sports (such as child camel jockeys or football players), or for religious cults.

It is estimated that 80% of human trafficking is made up of woman and children and that the vast majority are subjected to sexual exploitation.

This problem is clearly evident in the sex districts of many Southeast Asian nations where young girl’s are prostituted regularly, many of whom have been sold by their families, or taken as payment for exorbitant loans their families could not pay. The sources are families burdened by extreme poverty.

But the problem is not relegated only to the sex industry where we could ask questions about the normalization of prostitution as a contributing factor to this problem, but many of us would wash our hands of because we’re not directly involved. No, I’m afraid we can’t let ourselves of that lightly.

Human trafficking exists because we let it exist and we enable it through our lifestyles, many of us do so simply because of blissful ignorance.

Have we ever asked how the products in our homes, including the clothes that we wear, were produced? Have we ever asked how we are able to access so many things so cheaply? Have we ever asked how the businesses we support are staffed? Have we ever asked about how the chain of supply of everything is conducted? Do we think about the people we pass in the street? Do we think about the people serving us in restaurants, cafes and takeaway stores?

Remove the goggles of ignorant bliss, dig a little and a dirty, thinly veiled, secret reality in most cities around the world will reveal itself, a booming global slave trade that in many instances, we unknowingly enable.

The chocolate we eat, the coffee we drink, the clothes we wear, the red light districts, the restaurants the cheap products - they are often propped up by people caught in slavery - not just slave like conditions, but actual slavery. The slave industry is a global giant and it is growing. It is only the ignorant who live in a romanticized fantasy who think it all ended with William Wilberforce in the 19th century. We can look to the likes of Wilberforce for encouragement, but with that encouragement we must pick up the baton and fight for the rights and welfare of those whose lives are being destroyed by that industry in our time.

Poor families are selling their children who are then being used and abused in labour factories, as personal slaves in homes around the world, and in the sex industry. Men and woman are being forced into bonded labour and sex work by draconian creditors as they get caught in debt they can never pay back. The victims number in the millions and profits number in the billions of dollars. Families are being ripped apart and people are needlessly dieing - only to be cheaply replaced by more slaves.

Children are being raped and their value ripped away from them. People are being used as cattle. Human beings are being trafficked in droves as cheap products. All too often it is happening right under our noses and even if it isn’t, we have the power to do something, anything. The conditions for the propagation of illegal slavery are perfect and only human beings can change that.

Walk the journey with me as I seek to learn more about this issue. Follow that journey on this site. Share your stories, your thoughts and your emotions. Stumble and fail with me. Face the humility with me as I tackle my own hypocrisy - and don’t shy away from your own. Walk the journey with me of finding our own limitations and inadequacies, but most of all -  let us together, act and speak for those who cannot; the victims.

Human beings are not for sale!

Knowledge leads to responsibility. We have knowledge of human trafficking and the devastation it is causing. We have a responsibility. I am begging with you, pleading with you to not walk away from this article and wash your hands of this situation. The victims of human trafficking, the men, women and children need people like you and I to raise our voices. They need us to take up the mantle of people like William Wilberforce and to act. We need to put our line in the sand and say this is our time and this is our issue - this is our moment in history. We have the power to cripple the industry. We have the power to decrease the supply and severely diminish the demand. Will you stand idly by and plead ignorance or powerlessness, or will you plunge your life into the darkness and offer hope even if it costs you greatly?