Once Upon a Time I Had a Thought

Saturday, March 09, 2013

I recently attended a phenomenal conference on the movement to end human trafficking. I walked out overwhelmed, but with the clear sense that I needed to do something. That sense of something has turned into a volunteer opportunity through Freedom House, a shelter for trafficking victims in the bay area. Throughout March, I'll be attending weekly trainings to be a shelter volunteer, and I truly could not be more excited.

"Our ultimate goal is to empower survivors, supporting them in their journey of moving out of their past trauma to a future of independence and self-sufficiency."

I have no idea what to expect. I doubt it will be easy - in fact I expect it to be challenging, since it will bring me face to face with a terribly brutal side of humanity, but I'd like to do what I can to put a little more love in the world. Obviously this volunteer position asks for a high level of confidentiality, but I hope to share what I learn about anti-trafficking action and efforts.

Friday, February 22, 2013

I love my weekly emails from the General Board of Church and Society of The United Methodist Church. It's all packed full of articles about social justice issues, which of course is right up my alley. This past email, they had a great article on Lent and Human Trafficking - how can we use this time of intentionality to make a difference?

There 40 days could allow us - if we courageously accept - to see our own slavery footprint.

The article promotes a link to slaveryfootprint.org where you can take a quiz to see how many slaves are John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, had three rules to living a faithful life. It goes on to interpret these rules so they apply to human trafficking:

Do no harm: find ways to avoid buying slave made products
Do good: pray and give to organizations fighting trafficking and helping victims
Stay in love with God: our source of strength, compassion, and love who can help us continue our much needed work for justice.

The article finishes up with a link to slaveryfootprint.org where you can take a quiz to see how many slaves are currently working for you based on your current consumer habits. It takes about 5-10 minutes. According to their survey...

Well isn't that a sobering thought! But they're exactly right - knowing about the problem is the first step. I already make shopping second hand a priority for clothing, but I haven't examined slavery free options for other things, like household items, or food. Now that I know I can do (much) better, I'm making every effort to learn more in order to do more.

So, in attempts not to leave myself totally depressed over the news that about 46 slaves work for me, I need to focus on how I can learn more and help the situation. So I'll leave you with two great tools for learning more about how human slavery directly impacts your day to day life:

*Click here to read the US Department of Labor's List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor.

*FREE2WORK has an awesome free app that allows you to scan barcodes with your iPhone and see what part forced labor played in the production of that product.

Tuesday, February 05, 2013

Two weekends ago I attended a conference on human trafficking - Freedom Summit - organized by the South Bay Coalition to End Human Trafficking. I haven't had the mental energy to sit down and fully process everything until now. I knew going into the conference that it would be eye opening, shocking, and possibly depressing. I didn't realize I would walk away with a broken heart after learning about the very worst of human conditions - and humanity.

At the conference, I finally started understanding what human trafficking really was - not just a buzzword that the more devoted social justice seekers would throw out occasionally. the most eye opening thing I learned is that trafficking exists everywhere. I met a girl at the conference who grew up in the same town as I did, and whose parents sold her for sex throughout her high school and college years (view her story here). To say that I was blown away when I first heard her story would be an understatement. I always thought I grew up in just about the safest place I could have. We never even locked our front door! I had always thought of trafficking as some far away problem, that while horrendous, definitely would never effect me. Her story forever changed how I'll see trafficking.

So, I cried for two days straight after the conference. And then I got angry. While anger isn't an emotion that will sustain a drive to heal the world, it definitely can be an excellent spark to the fire. So now, the only logical thing is to do something about it. But I keep returning to a place of overwhelm. I feel overwhelmed every time I think about trafficking. I feel overwhelmed every time I try and think about how I can really make a difference. It's a huge and mysterious problem - there aren't many numbers or statistics to provide a factual basis on how to tackle this issue. According to the Polaris Project, "Victims of human trafficking are especially difficult to identify since they often do not self-report and because the crime of trafficking is both clandestine and involves holding victims in situations against their will. " So where do I even begin?

I promise I'm not trying to make you depressed. These things are unimaginable, and painful to talk about, but nonetheless must be. But making a difference is actually easier than I thought it was. while the conference was education based, they also provided us with many tools that we could use in our daily lives. Here are three easy ways to change the world just by making simple shifts to our lifestyles:

1. Free2Work has an awesome free app that allows you to scan products and find out what part labor abuse and trafficking plays in the manufacture of that product. Download it, and use it to help guide your consumer decisions.
2. Buy Fair Trade! It's amazing how much consume power we individually hold. If we can decrease demand on products that use forced labor, than we will automatically decrease the demand of forced labor.
3. Learn to recognize the signs of trafficking, and memorize the National Human Trafficking Resource Hotline: 1-888-3737-888.

I keep going back to Isaiah 1:17 - “Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows.”

Seek justice. Help the oppressed. I think we can do that.

Once Upon a Time I Had a Thought

Showing posts with label human trafficking. Show all posts

Freedom House

Lent and Human Trafficking

Freedom Summit

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