World Day Against Trafficking in Persons

Surprise! Hello!

Two post in two days? And on a Sunday? What is this?

Excellent question! This is me taking the opportunity to talk about something I am very passionate about. Today is World Day Against Human Trafficking in Persons.

Human trafficking? As in, like, slave trade? Didn't Wilberforce deal with that? Wasn't the American civil war about that? Yes and no.

Excellent strides have been made throughoht history to battle the buying and selling of humans. Unfortunately, human traffick is, from what I understand, an even greater "trade" than it used to be.

Children get kidnapped and sold as sex slaves. Men and women are forced to work in unfair conditions on little to no wages. And that's just what I am most aware of.

I confess, I don't know as much as I should. I'm willing to bet you don't either. May I take this opportunity to extend to you the same challenge I have given myself: find out!

Go looking. Become informed. You will probably be surprised and horrified by just how much of your own life is affected by human trafficking and modern day slavery.

To help you on the search, here are a couple of places you can go for information:

Stop the Traffik
I'll be honest, I only came across this site today, so I don't know it as well as I should. Still, from what I've seen, it's a good place to go to find out about the reality of trafficking.

Destiny Rescue
I have supported Destiny Rescue for a few years now. If you've been following along with this blog for a while, you'll have come across them before. Their focus is on child sex slavery and exploitation. They do excellent work rescuing and restoring children (and women) who have been forced to work as sex slaves. They also do work raising awareness and protecting at risk children. Go check them out!

Fairtrade
I love these guys! This site as a lot of information about slavery in the most common of our products: chocolate, tea, sugar, coffee and clothes, among other things. Their main focus though is not in raising awareness (although it is a large part of what they do), but in working with organisations and companies to help them be more ethical in their business practices. This is super, super important, as it is helping to fight slavery and poverty in practical ways that really make a difference. But they can tell you more than I can!

As I'm sure you can see, this is a massive issue. And really important. After all, all humas are made in the image of God - therefore they are worthy and should not be treated as cattle.

Love,
Laura Dee