Proclaim freedom
Presbyterians are among those battling a worldwide resurgence of slavery
By John Sniffen
 Fourteen-year-old Jenny left her native Nigeria for what she thought would be a good job in a safe place — working as a nanny for a couple from another African country living in the United States. But for five years her employer repeatedly raped her and his wife beat her with a cane. A local organization finally tipped off police, who rescued Jenny and prosecuted the couple.
An isolated incident? Unfortunately, it is not.
The United Nations estimates that 27 million-plus men, women and children are held in modern-day slavery all over the world. By comparison, researchers estimate that 15 million Africans were forcibly taken to the Americas from the 16th to the 19th centuries. This year marks the 200th anniversary of the U.S. ban on the trans-Atlantic slave trade. But, sadly, today even more people endure the horrors of slavery.
That’s why abolition of forced labor, human trafficking and the exploitation of children is one of the 22 goals emphasized in the “Social Creed for the 21st Century” that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and other members of the National Council of Churches are considering this year. The struggle to end slavery unites Christians across the theological spectrum.
Human trafficking is defined as the recruitment and transportation of children, women and men to another place or country through fraud or violence for the purpose of forced labor or servitude, including sexual slavery. The trade in human beings is a major source of profit for organized crime syndicates — just behind drug sales and even with arms sales — according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Some victims are refugees from wars. Others are individuals seeking a better life, lured by lies into settings where they are at a disadvantage because of language and culture, and intimidated by their oppressors. Still others, like Joseph in the Bible (Genesis 37), are sold into bondage by relatives.
Many Presbyterians learned about the Coalition of Immokalee Workers during the church-supported boycott that won wage concessions for tomato pickers in Florida. The Coalition is also working to expose cases of modern-day slavery.
In one of the largest slavery prosecutions in Southwest Florida, federal authorities charged six suspects in January with conspiring to make money off farmworkers from Mexico and Guatemala. Prosecutors claim that for two years the suspects held more than a dozen people as slaves, forcing them to sleep in cargo trucks and shacks, charging them for food and showers, refusing to pay them for picking produce and beating them if they tried to leave.
It was “slavery, plain and simple,” Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney Doug Molloy told reporters covering the indictments.
The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1865, outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude. And the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 established new tools and resources to combat trafficking in persons. Still the State Department estimates that 14,500 to 17,500 persons are brought into the United States involuntarily, essentially as slaves, each year. Close to 80 percent of those are women and children.
Why are so many people slaves in the “Land of the Free”? The Department of Justice cites two reasons. First, traffickers keep their victims isolated from the public and threaten them. Second, people and agencies that might help victims are mostly ignorant of their plight, and thus unable to recognize and assist them.
Needs our help: We can help break the bonds that hold slave workers in despair by being more aware of who produces products we use. Photograph © istockphoto.com/TomazLevstekOne of the most chilling aspects of modern-day slavery is sex tourism. “I’ve been in Sri Lanka, where European and American men go to what they call pleasure palaces — big homes — where they bring children from the beaches and ‘rent’ them for a day or a week or a month,” says Virginia Hadsell, a member of Montclair Presbyterian Church in Berkeley, Calif., who has fought sex tourism for 20 years.
“It’s a slippery activity. It’s easier to do when you are out from under the neighborhood watch, so to speak, in a place where you are relatively unknown. A lot of people shut their eyes to it, and enforcement is lax.”
Hadsell founded the Center for Responsible Tourism in 1984 on the campus of San Francisco Theological Seminary. She has traveled to a dozen countries to fight sex tourism.
In Houston, Texas, a mother and son were arrested in March after it was discovered they had a 16-year-old Mexican girl locked in a room in their house. Several persons allegedly sexually abused the teenager at the home and other locations.
Child pornography, a form of trafficking once thought near extinction, has experienced a revival, says Martha Bettis Gee, child advocacy associate for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). “It has proliferated to a great degree with the Internet,” she explains. Web users viewing child porn in their homes “don’t think they’re feeding [the sexual abuse of children], but they are.”
UNICEF estimates that more than 300,000 children under 18 — some as young as 7 — are currently involved against their will in 30 wars around the world. Many are given weapons, and told to fight or they or their families will be killed. Others serve in “support” roles, often involving sex with officers and other soldiers.
Maisha was 15 when the Mayi-Mayi militia, a loose coalition of Congolese soldiers, recruited him. After seeing many of his friends killed and his own village burned, Maisha fled, eventually entering a UNICEF-sponsored reintegration center for children associated with armed groups. Even with such assistance, former child soldiers face great odds against resuming a normal life. Often their personal development is irreparably damaged and they are shunned when they try to go home.
In 2002 the United States adopted a U.N. protocol that calls for all governments, paramilitaries and other such groups not to employ those under age 18 in military activities. More than 100 countries have ratified the convention, but there is little evidence that the worst offenders are following the U.N. rule.
Presbyterians have been fighting the evils of slavery for more than a century. For example, Donaldina Cameron, a Presbyterian woman from New Zealand who fought for social justice during the late 1800s and early 1900s, is credited with helping more than 3,000 Chinese women escape enslavement. Today the multilingual staff members of the Donaldina Cameron House in San Francisco meet daily with persons facing issues related to immigration, homelessness, human trafficking, sexual exploitation and domestic violence.
Presbyterian Women has taken a leading role in bringing the slavery problem to light. Two-dozen members of the national organization went to Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines in 1996 as part of a global exchange program to learn more about women and children caught in sexual exploitation.
In September 2005 the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) became a founding member of the Alliance for Fair Food. One of the goals of the Alliance is to work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to end slavery in the fields.
Earlier this year Linda Valentine, executive director of the PC(USA)’s General Assembly Mission Council, and Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the General Assembly, signed the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ petition to pressure Burger King and other food-industry leaders to stop “exploitation” and “modern-day slavery” in Florida’s agricultural fields.
Recent Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assemblies (1986, 1997, 2006) have condemned human trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and children. The 2006 Assembly urged Presbyterians to boycott travel and tourism companies that have not signed a Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism. The PC(USA)’s Mission Responsibility Through Investment committee was subsequently asked to encourage Hilton Hotels and Carnival Cruise Lines to sign the code of conduct.
Photograph © istockphoto.com/leeuwtjeFighting human trafficking is a matter of education and awareness, says Molly Casteel, PC(USA) associate for women’s advocacy. “Where human trafficking touches you is where it’s appropriate to step up and confront it.
“Be aware of what’s going on around you,” she says. “Learn how to identify possible victims of trafficking in your community. Locate the organizations working with domestic violence and sexual assault victims, and work with them. Find out if your state has a human-trafficking task force and what it is doing.”
Casteel suggests that Presbyterians planning a trip ask tour operators and hotel chains whether they subscribe to codes of conduct designed to help fight sex tourism. Know who harvested the food you eat or produced the products you use, she says. “Be aware of the global impact your choices make.”
Those opposing human trafficking know it is a struggle against great odds, but they feel they have the ultimate ally.
Lisa Thompson, a liaison for the Abolition of Sexual Trafficking with the Salvation Army, told students at Princeton Theological Seminary: “We have abundant resources because God is with us. So if I have the support of one policeman in India and the brothel has five bodyguards, I still must believe a way will open up — God’s work has always been done by the underdog.”
John Sniffen is associate editor of Presbyterians Today. |
