I’m heading off to Advocacy Days in a few minutes. The one hour time change is ruffling my feathers - I would like to sleep a bit more. I know I’m missing the morning worship and speaker now, but such is life…
One of the workshops I attended yesterday delivered information about the Not For Sale Campaign, a new effort to advocate against modern slavery in our world. Believe it or not, slavery has not disappeared - it has taken new faces. Slaves today are promised economic benefits but then trapped with low wages and threats of authority. For example, young, poor people from India, Thailand, and other countries are offered an opportunity to move to America to find a job, but the person who creates a fake VISA for them prevents them from having any freedom by threatening to turn them into authorities and giving them terribly low wages ($2-3 an hour). In some instances, these folks may be the waiters or waitresses you see at your local restaurants.
Of course, slavery also includes the sex trade. And don’t think America also doesn’t have its place in that industry as well, though you don’t hear about it on the nightly news.
All in all, it’s a $32 billion a year industry, and most world leaders don’t know what to do. Most efforts must begin with laws and regulations passed locally to dry up the market for such, but there also needs to be international efforts, education strategies, and economic aid to countries especially affected. We need to give individuals an opportunity to succeed where they are in some fashion. Sadly, children are also affected - in some cases, families sell one of their children into the trade to pay debt or children are snatched up. We have to make this kind of evil market unprofitable.
You can find out more about the campaign here - http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/.
I’m going to look into it and see if the North Korean Freedom Coalition cannot partner with it in some fashion, since North Korea has also been known to participate in these kinds of criminal activities.
I’ll have audio files and pictures to post up later.
