Biblical Justice & HT - Part II

Even if human trafficking (HT) really exists -- even in Portland -- and all these millions of people are victims of heinous crimes, of crass greed, does it really affect you? After all you are not promoting this stuff and you're certainly not going out to buy anybody. Never have. Never will.

What is Edmund Burke supposed to have said, but nobody is certain? "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Something like that. The sin of omission.

Keith Green's song comes to mind, the one about the sheep and the goats, and you remember he was quoting Jesus out of Matthew 25. How in the last days, when he comes in his glory and sits on his throne, all the nations will be gathered before him. He will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

The sheep are those who do all kinds of good things and don't even realize they were doing all that good. To them, King Jesus says, "Come on in and enjoy my kingdom."

So the goats get to thinking something nice is going to happen to them, too, when all of a sudden, the King says to them, "Depart! Go away. Hell is your reward. For I was in desperate need and you didn't help me. In need like sick, hungry, thirsty, an alien, without clothes, in prison even, and you did not look after me."

Then the goats respond," When did we see you like this and did not help you?"

And the King replies, "Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me."

There it is again. Just doing nothing is enough to damn you to hell.

OK, so maybe the poor and needy and aliens and HT victims really are your responsibility. And you are just as guilty as con-artists and kidnappers, pimps and middlemen, johns and end-users if you don't do something about these people.

But if you are going to draw up a statement on HT, it has to say something more specific about HT, like people being captured and bought and sold and freed. And you wonder about this, because the Bible doesn't really come out and say that slavery is wrong, does it? Why even the New Testament writer, Paul, tells the slaves to submit to their masters, though it stretches the theological brainwaves to think he wanted little kids to submit to rape by their Roman owners. Maybe something else is going on in Paul's thoughts at that moment, more like what you are supposed to do when you find yourself trapped as a victim in human slavery and no way to get out. Perhaps his message of submission is not directed at the masters and what they should be doing about your well-being.

After all rape is victim status to the do-ee, even though you feel very spiritually and emotionally dirty afterwards. You tell yourself it is your fault and you notice other people blame you too, but it isn't something you've done. It's something that has been done to you, no matter what you were doing before it happened. And that is what happens when you are caught in human trafficking whether it is sex or labor or body parts, right? Someone's trapped you, snared you, lured you -- treated you worse than dirt. You just wish others saw it the same way.

But what about when you are a free person, a citizen with rights even, and you find someone else a victim? Jesus' famous story known as "The Good Samaritan" comes to mind, the one where a man on his way to Jericho is ambushed by thieves who beat him up pretty badly, steal everything even his clothes, and leave him to die on the side of the road. A couple of religious leaders (what is it with Jesus and religious leaders?) come along the road thinking nothing worse than self-preservation, see the victim lying there and decide to steer clear and move on quickly.

Then a Samaritan (something like an African-American in Alabama circa 1964) comes along and rescues the victim, fixing him up, taking him to an inn, telling the inn-keeper to look after him and that he (the Samaritan) will cover the entire bill. At which point, Jesus tells his listeners to "Go and do likewise."

That is not goat-like victim avoidance.

Stephanie Ahn Mathis, our OCCV executive director, adds that when you are going down that road to Jericho and you come to your hundredth victim, you begin to think that something is wrong with the road and maybe you ought to do something about it.

Something like what happened to Jeremiah when God called him to speak prophetically to the nations, "See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant." (1:10) Talk about building a new road. The prophet intends to build a new nation - a safe and just nation.

Biblical Justice & HT - Part I

You are thinking that no one is possibly FOR human trafficking (HT). Maybe people assume it is far, far away from their world or they don't think at all. Only scum like pimps and johns and exploiters and kidnappers and other kinds of lowlife are really FOR trafficking of human beings.

You and Bryan Colbourne, your fellow co-chair on the HT advisory committee of the Oregon Center for Christian Values, are working on a draft of your committee's Action Plan. You've been tasked to put together the section on biblical justice.

You think about that. If no one is FOR HT, why does it even exist? Sure, you've heard vague and pitiful stories from exotic places like Southeast Asia and Africa and occasionally some hint of it here in America with women being smuggled in from foreign countries, right? American women, aren't they into prostitution for the kicks or because they need money? At least that is what people assume. Sad that underage girls get caught up in it, too, but they can always leave that scene -- this is a free country after all. Maybe we do need to rescue them, get them cleaned up and headed in the right direction and everything will be fine. Or so people think.

What is HT anyway? You need a definition for your document, so you go online and you find a couple of helpful explanations. One is from the United Nations, which makes it automatically suspect to some people, but the wording is still useful, so maybe you can call it an "internationally accepted definition": "the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation." Wordy, but its full-court solid.

Next you go to the ultimate source of all knowledge, Wikipedia. There in simpler English, it says HT is "people being tricked, lured, coerced or forced to work with no or low payment or on terms that are highly exploitative." It's considered trade or commerce in people, which has many features of slavery, doesn't require transportation or border-crossing. Victims of HT ... Whoa, stop the presses. There's the key word -- VICTIMS. These people are victims of a crime. Slavery, crime, victims. The words keep coming ... "prostitution, forced labor (including bonded labor or debt bondage) and other forms of involuntary service" -- and also "the sale of babies and children for adoption or other purposes." Whew.

Victims. Not prostitutes. Not laborers. And not just little kids. Cradle to grave, these people, every last one of them, are victims of greed. When the trafficker looks at these human beings, he (why is it always a "he"?) doesn't see persons, individuals. All he sees are dollar signs, like stuff you buy at Wal-Mart for 5 bucks and trade on E-Bay for 500.

HT exists because there is a market for the product. The product happens to be humans or, more precisely, human bodies or parts thereof. Lots of pretty girls and some pretty boys, too. But also human machines, little kids or adults that can make clothes or provide kidneys or farm fields or do really cheap labor because you and I assume they are better off than they would be otherwise. 27 million of them according to those that count such things, but nobody really knows. Because it is all underground. Out of sight. Often right under our noses, like right here in God-love-it America and super-sophisticated Portland.