Human trafficking...the Apocalypse...now

Every two minutes, while I am sitting here writing these words, a child is sold into sex slavery. Does that shock you ? Maybe not...But, here's the reality of this tragedy...it isn't stopping and by some estimates is worsening. If you just read the many reports and see the staggering numbers being tossed out it can be so overwhelming as to cause paralysis. One may think...there are so many...everywhere...what can I possibly do. I am reminded of the quote by Robert Kennedy:
“Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of the colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change. Each time a person stands up for an idea, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
The US State Department has estimated that between fifty to one hundred thousand women and children are being trafficked for the specific purpose of sex slavery. In addition there are more than twenty five thousand brought into the country from many other international locations for the same purpose. Granted the numbers are always in flux but each organization defends their number. For example, in 2001, the FBI estimated 700,000 women and children were trafficked worldwide, UNICEF estimated 1.75 million, and the International Organization on Migration (IOM) merely 400,000. In 2001, the UN drastically changed its own estimate of trafficked people in 2000 -- from 4,000,000 to 1,000,000. As many as 7,000 Nepali girls as young as 9 are sold annually into India's red-light districts, 200,000 in the last decade. Afghani women are sold into prostitution in Pakistan for around 600 rupees - less than $4 a pound, depending on their weight. About 50,000 Asian, Latin American and Eastern European women and children are trafficked into the United States for sexual exploitation, the going rate between $12,000 and $18,000 each.
No matter how debatable...these numbers...no matter how many...have faces. The sad fact is that we look at these numbers and still are not moved into compassionate action to support the rescue of these victims. Where is our righteous indignation? That same kind of anger and action shown when Jesus cleaned house... in His house, so to speak. Our anger wells up in us for a minute or maybe more when we read these endless stories of children being trafficked for sex and then we are on to the next thing. Where is that passion and anger at (barely) speakable sins and incredible injustice that makes us want to turn over some tables of our own? Just sitting here thinking about a twelve year old girl having to have sex with ten to twelve grown men a day makes my blood pressure go up and sickens my stomach. But it certainly will take more than that to move many of us into action. As with most social justice issues like poverty, homelessness, hunger, addictions and lack of access to education and medical care, it will not seem real until it's personal and up close. Unless these issues directly affect you or someone in your family...you have no clue. You are only guessing what it must be like at fourteen or fifteen years old to be beat daily by a pimp you call “daddy”. Or selling your daughter for a paltry sum to support an addiction...I mean really, just how bad does it have to get? I am sure there some who are on the front lines of this fight that could tell many stories...well...maybe not...maybe they can't get the words out anymore...Our tolerance for what we will accept for these children is way beyond what it should be. The things we condone by our apathy become, in effect, the things we agree to. What is right and moral and worth turning tables over for becomes hazier and less important the farther away we get from it. Even though there is a lot of talk and advocacy going on with this issue the action part seems to be very lacking. Last year, I discovered the term is called “slactivism.” As per WIKIPEDIA...”The word is usually considered a pejorative term that describes "feel-good" measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little or no practical effect other than to make the person doing it feel satisfaction. The acts tend to require minimal personal effort from the slacktivist.” I can assure that there will be some benefit but things as evil as child sex trafficking will not diminish by wearing a ribbon, a bumper sticker, or a rubber arm bracelet. No...there's gonna have to be more...there simply has to be courageous, determined and sustained action. But to do the action part we have to move in close and get our hands dirty and that's where we fall short.. What an entirely different kind of  ministry Jesus would have had if He was fearful of going into the dark and risky places and picking and choosing who would be the recipient of His grace that day. Can you just imagine for a minute how different peoples lives might have been. Can you imagine a wretched world without the glimmer of hope Jesus brings?We are called by Jesus to fully wade in and He empowers us with divine passion and the power of the Holy Spirit to go beyond what we might have thought possible to correct injustice. It's going to take a risky radical faith... a belief in the omnipotent God who is calling us to come out of the safe place where we live into the life where the previously thought impossible thing becomes normal. Without risk there is no faith...without faith there is no hope...without hope there is only death....faith is a verb.