There are more slaves today than ever before in history. Can you believe it? I mean, I know there are heaps more people, but surely slavery has been abolished by now, right? We’re more civilized now, yeah?
I hate to be a downer, but how can I keep silent about something this serious? If any of these people who are being sold were my brother, I would not sleep until he were rescued. Thankfully, there are organizations that are already doing something about this horrendous problem. People are raising awareness, making documentaries, starting safe-houses, reporting crime, mapping trafficking hot-spots, adopting children… It’s amazing. Today our speaker gave us a heap of resources about trafficking and what is being done about it.
Media is one of the most powerful tools that we can use to spread awareness, but remember, knowing about it will not help the people who are in it. Awareness must lead to compassion, which must lead to action, if you are intending on making any sort of a difference. Whenever Jesus was moved to compassion, did he leave? No! He acted. Keep that in mind.
One movie that you probably don’t want to watch, but probably should watch, is Nefarious: Merchant of Souls. http://nefariousdocumentary.com/ Another few media efforts are http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/ and http://www.mtvexit.org/?lang=en_us. I think it’s wonderful that CNN and MTV are doing something to tell people. When light is shone on a dark place, things happen! People’s lives have been saved by the efforts of MTV and CNN through the freedom project and MTVexit.
Something that I learned today was this: It is incredibly overwhelming to see all the need that is in the world. But all I need to do is ONE THING. Once I have the momentum of ACTING on the ONE THING, then I at least will be pushed forwards. If you look at a problem, get overwhelmed and paralyze yourself, what will you accomplish? Pray that God will show you what you can do. ONE THING can do a world of difference, and be all the difference. After all, ONE THING leads to the NEXT THING, and before you know it, you’ve made a difference. William Wilberforce (24 August 1759 – 29 July 1833) was a politician who fought to abolish slavery for twenty six years before the act passed. He had his ONE THING, and by golly, he was determined to fight for it! And it made a difference in the end! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wilberforce
Here’s some more organizations against slavery and trafficking:
Someone today asked what we can do when we know of trafficking that’s happening. We were encouraged to get to know law enforcement officers in our area, by name. Build a relationship with them, to the point of having their phone number. We as civilians could really endanger ourselves and the victims if we tried to take action ourselves. Of course, in some places the law is not very get-to-knowable. There’s also a way to record when trafficking happens, where it happened, and whether or not legal action was taken, using this: http://slaverymap.org/
But wait, there’s more! There’s a nifty app you can get that scans what you buy, and tells you the likelihood that the company that produced it used slave labor or not: http://www.free2work.org/ Ethical shopping seems hard, but I think this would be a really good tool to help one get a good idea of how to do it.
When it’s all said and done, we are all called to care. Don’t turn your eyes away from the world. Do ONE THING. After all, what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with you God? (Micah 6:8)