How much is a person worth? We all want to know we are worth something to someone, right? What if you found out you are only worth $3? I recently learned that in Thailand there are "karaoke bars" where you can buy a girl for an hour. When you pay your receipt will say the following: beer $4, food $5, girl $3. Does anyone else find it disturbing that a person is considered to be worth less than a beer? These girls are seen as property, not people.
This past Monday I went to a viewing of Nefarious: Merchant of Souls. This documentary was all about modern day slavery in the form of human trafficking. Going into the viewing I had no idea what to expect but I left so much more aware than I every thought I would be. I learned about various types of slavery (prostitution) and was shocked to learn that sometimes it is done from a place of wanting to honor parents by prostituting to make money and done with parental compliance.
Another shocking new knowledge was what I learned about some Eastern European countries with high numbers of orphans. Traffickers often wait for girls to age out of the orphanages and then either sweet talk them into leaving under the pretense of a job in a shop or they will just abduct the girl. What these girls then go through is heart breaking. They are literally beaten and "broken in" until they are both physically and mentally broken. The treatment of these women is something unimaginable and happens all around the world, including here.
Here are some facts that I learned Monday: 27 million people are enslaved around the world (Free the Slaves by Kevin Bales), trafficking is a $32 billion a year industry (United Nations), and the average entry into commercial trafficking in America is 13 years old (US Department of Justice).
There are several organizations that are working diligently to fight trafficking so I thought I'd share a few links (these are some of the more well known organizations but there are a lot of others out there):
www.a21campaign.org
http://exoduscry.com/about/modern-day-slavery/
www.ijm.org
www.humantrafficking.org
www.endhumantrafficking.org
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