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Human Trafficking Awareness Campaign

January 11, 2010 - National Human Trafficking Awareness Day

Reflection

It may be shocking to some people to discover that slavery still exists today here in Los Angeles and around the world. Over two thousand years after Jesus knelt before his cousin John and was publicly baptized into his ministry, we have not yet won freedom for all God’s children. Long after the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation, the invisible bondage of slavery continues in our midst.

Here in the Southland, slaves have been rescued from sweatshops and private homes, from brothels and from nursing homes. Perhaps you’ve seen it in your neighborhood, the young girl from overseas who spends months with ‘relatives’ doing endless chores instead of visiting Disneyland and the beaches. Maybe there’s a warehouse near your office with extraordinary security, dogs, cameras, and groups of people who seem very tightly controlled. Or maybe the bus boy at your favorite restaurant always seems to have a new set of bruises but never dares to speak to you even though you share the same native language.

Even if we haven’t personally witnessed an incident like these, the chains of slavery encircle our own lives in ways we might not expect. A recent report in Stop Trafficking observed “[s]laves may have made the bricks that were used to build the factory that assembled the TV you watch. Slaves in Latin America may have made the charcoal used to temper the steel that made the springs in your car and the blades in your lawn-mower. Child slaves may have picked the coffee beans that were roasted to supply your morning cup of coffee. A 7-year old Pakistani boy may have spent 10-14 hours per day chained to a rug-weaving loom to help make the carpet in your home.” Enslaved children on the Ivory Coast may have picked the cocoa in your favorite chocolate bar, while slave families in Southeast Asia work off generations of unfair debts mining the minerals and metals that make your computer or cellphone work.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “As long as any one of us is enslaved, we are all enslaved.” Fighting modern slavery here or in other countries may seem like a daunting problem, something better left to governments and experts. But there is room for everyone in the growing movement to end slavery. Kevin Bales, one of the leading modern abolitionists, says in his book Ending Slavery that if governments and individuals each do their part, slavery could be completely eradicated within a generation.

What a gift that would be to God! A world where every person was able to fully live in the image of the One who made them. Jesus knew slaves in his time. He walked among them and saw their misery. He died for them as much as for you or me. We are called through our baptisms to do His work, and fighting slavery is something we can all do.

All of us can put an anonymous human trafficking hotline number on our refrigerator or in our mobile phones and wallets so that we are ready to make the call. We can choose fair trade coffee or chocolate and encourage our companies to do business in a way that honors the dignity of each person. We can support the slavery prevention, rescue and recovery work of organizations like Catholic Relief Services, Free the Slaves or the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking. We can read books or watch documentaries about the problem and learn more ways to help. And yes, we can pray – for wisdom, for strength, and for freedom for everyone.

Lisa Helene Donovan
Director of Communications
Sisters of Notre Dame
California Province