On Love and Sacrifice

Since it is now February, my thoughts and the thoughts of many people, have turned to Valentine's Day. For my Catholic friends and acquaintances, thoughts have been turning toward Lent, since it begins on the 13th. Recently, though, my own thoughts, while occupied by both of those things, have also turned to something a great deal more ominous: human trafficking and modern-day slavery. I don't recall how my attention was drawn to the matter, but once I'd caught my first glimpse, I buried myself in information about it.

As with anything else about which I have questions, I spent a few days looking up the facts about human trafficking, and surely only scratched the surface of how horrifying the phenomenon truly is. Estimates, though by the very nature of the trade inexact, put the number of people held in slavery worldwide at almost 21 million. These people are men, women, and children of all ages and races, being taken from everywhere to everywhere for both forced labor and forced prostitution. Human trafficking is now the second largest black market in the world, second only to drug trafficking.

The majority of the people enslaved around the world are forced labor in factories, private homes, businesses, and occasionally even traveling around in groups with their captors. Many are recruited through promises of a better life, employment for adults, education or employment for children. The recruiters tell stories of the lives these people will lead, prosperous enough to send money home to take care of their families, and gain the trust of the entire communities in order to take people away with them. Once on the market, the unsuspecting victims are given or sold to their slavemasters. Some are told they have incurred or are incurring (imaginary) debts that they must work off, but as time wears on, they only sink further and further into debt that they can never repay. Most are overworked, starved, and abused, and too scared or practically unable to leave their situation. Money very rarely makes it back to their families, and though a lucky few are rescued, many more die in slavery without anyone to care that they're gone.

A large minority, about 43% of enslaved people, are forced into prostitution. Some are placed in brothels, others in massage parlors, others in strip clubs, and still others on the streets, all kept hostage by pimps, some as young as 8 or 9. Though pimps have been somewhat glorified in western culture, the terrifying reality is so much worse to hear. A real pimp controls every aspect of a prostitute's life, from when or if they can eat on any given day to how many Johns they will see each day to how much they are to charge for sexual acts they are forced to perform. Like other slaveholders, pimps give nothing to prostitutes, and beat and starve them in order to exact obedience, occasionally bringing drugs into the mix to keep them dependent. Like people forced into labor, people forced into prostitution have almost no way out of their situation, save for the very remote possibility of being saved by law enforcement, and many die in slavery without anyone to mourn them.

Even more frightening, as if such a thing is conceivable, is that many of the young girls in slavery in the US are runaways or have passed through the foster care system. These girls are as young as 12 and often did not receive love in their homes, and are exploited by pimps who lavish that love on them, buy them things, and act as their protector and guide before turning them out and forcing them to have sex for money. Many of them attend school simultaneously, and their teachers and peers never notice that they need help, only realizing something is wrong after they leave. If any of these girls are lucky enough to escape, their actions are criminal in 41 states, regardless of whether or not they were brainwashed or coerced, and many go to jail because it is easier to prosecute them than the pimps who control them or the Johns who use them.

All of this is too awful for words to accurately convey, and it can seem like it is too big or too dark or too secret for ordinary people to help solve. But it isn't. Whether you're a student, an educator, or a concerned citizen, there is a way for you to have a positive impact and contribute to ending modern day slavery. The easiest thing to do is to educate yourself about the issue. MTVU has a powerful project on its website called Against Our Will with interactive programs that tell you how people come into slavery and what that life is like. The federal government keeps the best statistics it can on the number of people trapped in slavery today, as do many other countries.

After educating yourself, there are so many things you can do. You can reach out to your high school or college to bring someone in to educate both staff and students about slavery and how to recognize it and report it. You can donate to or volunteer with organizations like the Polaris Project, which actively work to rescue people from slavery. You can make local, state, or federal lawmakers aware of the extent of the problem, especially because it is likely happening in their constituency. If you are unable to do anything else, tell someone you know about the issue. Refuse to stay quiet, because this is literally a life or death issue for people held in slavery.

It doesn't matter if you're religious or not, whether you're gay or straight, where you live, or what you do, slavery is an issue that should matter to everyone, and everyone can be a part of the solution. So during this time when so many of us are given to thinking of love or sacrifice, take a second to think of, pray for, or lend aid to someone who sacrifices so much and is loved so little, except by God.