We celebrate all kinds of days.
Birthdays, Valentine's Day, Grandparent's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day.
Today is "National Human Trafficking Awareness Day".
Gross.
There are 27 million "slaves" in the world today.
That is more than any other time in the world.
The account of Moses say, he and Aaron lead 2.5 million out of Egypt.
Yes, that seems crazy too.
What about all the work of William Wilberforce?
Lincoln?
Are they the same thing?
What does trafficking and slave labor look like?
Human trafficking:
The illegal trade of human beings mainly for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation or forced labor.
Slavery:
A system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work.
You don't have to look very hard.
Here are a few pictures of what it looks like today from the lens of my camera:
This young lady has a long story to tell.
Not so different from all the other girls that live and work with her.
She sells herself to take are of herself and her children.
Children that have been taken from her.
Children that she wants back, two young boys.
She makes $60 U.S. per month which pays room and board.
She can see up to ten men per day.
None of her earnings are applied to her family debt.
Crossing from Cambodia to Thailand.
You can see children pushing child across the border in a suitcase.
Are they playing?
If they are playing, let me ask you who taught them how to play that game?
Are they begging?
What about school?
Who is taking care of them?
How do you account for all the middle aged white men crossing the borders on daily basis.
In many developing countries you will see child caring for children.
Children forced into labor at very tender ages.
I was told this is part of their family culture and how they "pay back" their family.
In some cases children are left at the border.
Sitting all day long, begging, medicated.
If you are a parent you know there is no way you can make a child sit still in one place all day long.
So, where is the mother?
You guessed it, selling herself as well.
The sadder part to this story is that there is a generation of children who have not learned to interact within a family let alone with other people.
They are RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder) children.
Hundreds of them.
The don't learn to walk, talk or develop social skills at a normal stage.
When you buy clothes at a "big chain" retail store for dirt cheap and the tag says "made-in" (insert any developing country) have you thought about where they are made and who is making them?
What if you added one dollar to the price and that dollar went to the person who made it?
This is what "cottage industry or sweat shops" look like.
No fans, no running water.
Just men and women sewing piles and piles of clothes, all day, every day.
They make about $2.00 per day in most places.
This week I heard it said, "awareness is doing something".
I pray that we can do so much more than just one day devoted to awareness.
No comments:
Post a Comment