The trafficking and owning of slaves was abolished in this country in the nineteenth century. I remember writing essays about this in my Church History course as an undergrad in the early 90's. Yet it seems that slavery of another kind is alive and flourishing in Europe - indeed, according to William Hague in today's Independent, there may be many more slaves now than there were then. People who are in forced work having been tricked into taking loans; women who have been married into servitude, women and children who have been bought and sold to people the sex industry.
I know a few people who are trying to do something concrete to address this issue of human trafficking. One is the inimitable Carrie Pemberton, for whose charity Chaste I organised a fundraising concert here at college. Another is Si Johnston (that's THREE Baptists on this blog in the space of a month... ha!) whose latest post had me frozen to my seat. Here's a bit of a speech he made about Protest4:
Protest4 is a growing group of people who believe that through action, by our solidarity, we can protest4 a better world. And it is significant that our first endeavour will be to address the issue of slavery. Everyday, as a minister here at this church, I am forced to walk past the monolith outside our front door – The Lincoln Tower. It serves to remind us that at the height of the transatlantic slave trade of the 15th-19th centuries some 11 million Africans were exported to the Americas, and that subsequently, a group of people, under the leadership of William Wilberforce through time, succeeded in abolishing the slave-trade and thus one of the greatest scars on the face of modern history. Or did they? To the surprise of many, there are now more people in slavery across our world than there were in the days of Wilberforce...
The reality is that tonight, one girl, Sofia who has under the guise of being ushered into this ‘better world’ over and against the oppression she experienced in her village in Albania, went through the dehumanising ‘breaking process’ where she was repeatedly and violently raped until her spirit broke making her the commodity she needed to be for her pimps in Soho as we sit here tonight. As a child brought up in the violence of Northern Ireland, I had, at a young age, the dictum ‘Do unto others as you would have done unto yourself’ drummed into me. Can I ask, if you were in one of the breaking camps in Belgrade, Nis or Tirana, and found yourself being tortured to the point when your life lost all meaning, what would you want someone to do for you? If you were in Soho tonight and had to perform sex acts against your will under the threat of death to you or your family, what would you want someone to do for you? Human-trafficking is a global trade in rape for profit. I am culpable because, as a man, I share my masculinity with the perpetrators of these crimes and the victims are crying out for someone, anyone, to do something to help them...
...ask yourself the question…what would I like someone to do for me if I was in their shoes?
This stuff is really horrid, but we need to read it, get real about it, and do something about it. Chaste is here. The rest of Si's post is here (don't stop on the first paragraph - this issue is way, way bigger than party politics). Protest4's provisional webpage is here.
Then join me in thinking what to do next. Cause we have to do something.
Real food for thought. It's a horrible thought to think that many of these girls are younger than me - things cannot be done quickly enough.
Posted by: Serena | 26/01/2005 at 23:36
This (and going to Si's blog too) made me cry...The awful thing is that, whatever is done by law and government, I suspect that some vulnerable women will always be trapped in this situation, which is as old as humanity. No reason not to raise the profile, though, and write letters and talk and pray
Posted by: Kathryn | 27/01/2005 at 09:33
it's depressingly true, K, that we can't save the whole world. But even if it made a difference to a FEW lives, any effort I make would be worth it. Cup half full, I keep telling myself
Posted by: maggi | 27/01/2005 at 09:41
The story of the starfish? Yes...so true
Posted by: Kathryn | 27/01/2005 at 10:11
keep praying about this because one of the protest4 crew is right on the brink of seeing a trafficked Albanian girl come out of it (the Soho scene) but she hasn't quite reached the tipping point.
Posted by: si | 27/01/2005 at 17:55