HB3623 - The Groundswell Begins

Last week Stacy Bellavia and I represented the Oregon Center for Christian Values (OCCV) at a hearing of the Human Services Committee of the Oregon State Legislature. The Committee was accepting testimony on HB3623, known as the "Trafficking Hotline Bill" in anticipation of the bill being introduced in the State Legislature's upcoming Special Session in February.

Stacy was able to present written testimony along with verbal testimony from Keith Bickford, head of the Oregonian Human Trafficking Task Force (OHTTF), and Multnomah County Commissioner Diane McKeel. They were introduced by the two sponsors of the bill, Representative Brent Barton and Representative Jefferson Smith.

The bill is likely to pass as there is little perceived opposition to it and no funding is attached, but OCCV and its Human Trafficking Advisory Committee that Bryan Colbourne and I co-chair are intent on generating a groundswell of support for this bill as we see it as a great opportunity to shed some high visibility on a problem that has gone unnoticed for far too long in our state.

At the hearing, Representative Carolyn Tomei, the Human Services Committee Chair, called HB 3623 "the first legislative step in Oregon's extended fight against sex and human trafficking." In actuality the bill really is just a first and partly symbolic step, as it is strictly voluntary and requires no funding, a key to getting it passed in this year of severe revenue shortage. What the bill does is to authorize the Polaris Project to distribute, through the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, stickers that carry Polaris' human trafficking hotline number along with a letter asking businesses to post the sticker in a prominent location. Over the course of this next year, the sticker will be mailed to almost all 10,000 alcohol license holders, with the cost of the sticker and the cover letter defrayed by Polaris and volunteer groups.

We want to shine as much light and heat on this bill as possible, hoping to make Oregonians aware of this severe problem in our own back yard. Moreover we hope to change the image of "prostitute" to that of "victim" and by doing so start to treat these individuals as people in need of rescuing and rehabilitating from their life of physical and emotional bondage. Oregon and especially Portland are on a major West Coast sex trafficking circuit and there are other forms of human trafficking in our state as well.

As was discussed at the hearing, we are intent on seeing much more legislation and coordinated effort unfold in the next several years. Such extended effort hopefully will include a future bill modeled after the New York Safe Harbor Act. Our own U.S. Senator Ron Wyden is introducing legislation at the Federal level (SB2925) to fund safe houses, which are critical to rescue and recovery operations. While OCCV does not do advocacy at the Federal level, we will be watching to see what we can support on the state and local level. At the same time, we want to focus on the front end of this trafficking problem, finding ways to stop the intake of victims through education, fighting poverty, and improving the state's foster care program. But all this is down the road at this moment.

Last night we had a meeting of our HT committee. With Stacy Bellavia (who formerly worked with the International Justice Mission in India), Wynne Wakkila, Executive Director for Oregonians Against Trafficking Humans (OATH), Jill Sherman of Women of Vision, and Shelea Molerstuen, we developed an advocacy plan for helping pass HB3623.

The next step is a meeting we are convening at the George Fox Evangelical Seminary (Portland Campus) on Wednesday, January 27, at 7:30 pm. Among the speakers will be James Barta, Legislative Aide to Representative Brent Barton, one of the bill's sponsors. We will also be explaining the legislative process, how advocacy works and what Biblical Justice is all about. Representatives from various organizations advocating against human trafficking as well as other groups, agencies and local churches will also be participating. Stephanie Mathis, OCCV's Executive Director, calls this meeting "a great opportunity to learn about and mobilize support for this important bill," to be introduced in the upcoming Special Legislative Session in February. 

We have had some great colleagues on this committee, including Jim and Paula Wesphal who are stepping down to establish the nonprofit "Door To Grace" with the goal of establishing a safe house for victims of sex trafficking. Wynne is our link with the OATH campaign which is the volunteer, public awareness, education and outreach branch of OHTTF. The OHTTF represents frontline law enforcement, federal, state, and local government agencies, investigating bodies and other organizations that are actively involved in combating human trafficking in our state of Oregon. Women of Vision (related to World Vision), represented by Jill Sherman, is also a key player in the fight against human trafficking.

These and many other organizations are working on many fronts to combat human trafficking in Oregon. Our organization, OCCV, which focuses on issues such as poverty, health care and creation care, is primarily an education and advocacy group. While other organizations will focus on tasks such as rescue and recovery for trafficking victims, OCCV's primary role is in advocating at the state and local level for changes in laws and for funding for improved public security, victim shelters and other resources to combat HT.

Not all of these organizations we work with are religious in nature, obviously, but they all have a commitment to do whatever can be done to stop a very sinister form of human slavery in our own midst. OCCV, which is a Christian organization, takes on this advocacy, education and coordination assignment with the clear sense that God has called us to this task of Biblical Justice. We heed the call of Psalm 82:3, which says, "Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed."

National Human Trafficking Awareness Day

Today is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. Stop and think, just for one moment: what does this mean to me?

Biblical Justice & HT - Part III

 

January has been declared National Slavery and Human Trafficking Month. How fitting that it coincides with the national birthday celebration of Martin Luther King. How tragic that a century and a half after Lincoln liberated our African-American slaves and 50 years after the U.S. Supreme Court began forcing society to accept the advances of the Civil Rights movement, slavery still exists in the United States of America. And right in my own back yard.

 

I hear of a nearby pastor friend who counseled a worker from India here on assignment, a virtual slave with his every move controlled. Somehow this kind of shadow slavery in our midst doesn't seem as critical as pubescent girls trapped in sex trafficking. But I think of what I read in my devotions yesterday morning in Isaiah 3:15. The prophet's imagery haunts me: "What do you mean by grinding the faces of the poor?"

 

Really, the Indian worker used for his labor and the girl sold for her body are victims of the same grievous sins - greed, lust and idolatry. I hear it in the words of Isaiah when he proclaims, "Their land is full of silver and gold, there is no end to their treasures. Their land is full of horses; there is no end to their chariots. Their land is full of idols; they bow down to the work of their hands; to what their fingers have made." Isaiah concludes by saying that "man will be brought down low and mankind humbled" as a result (2:7-8). And he counsels God not to forgive such proud and materialistic people, whom he adds increase their properties, joining house to house and field to field, until they "live alone in the land," (5:8) in direct disobedience to the Mosaic laws of Jubilee.

 

But do we really "grind the faces of the poor"? It is a grotesque description. I doubt I have ever met anyone that would deliberately grind a poor person's face. Ok, I've met a few now that I think about it, their souls as ugly as their deeds. Then I read the Scriptures talking about the sins of omission, and I realize we share their guilt by not rising to rescue the poor who are losing face -- who are made to feel like just another cheap commodity on the market.

 

And yet there is something even deeper at work here. Most every Christian I know would deplore the sex trade and its exploitation of young kids, whether in the USA or in Uganda. Just as they are inclined to cry out against the worship of the human body in modern society, also a form of idolatry. But what happens to that trafficked girl and that Indian worker are really the same, whether sex is involved or not.

 

What makes sex trafficking or human trafficking or worker exploitation of any sort detestable in God's sight is what it does to the crown of His creative energy -- humankind. Like the loving Father He is, God made man and woman in His own image so that He could delight in them, cherish every last one of them as His own sons and daughters. As with the shepherd in the parable of the one lost sheep, God goes to extreme lengths to rescue even just one of His own children.

 

So when we exploit our fellow man for financial gain, when we put down a woman for the sense of power it gives us, when we trade a child for sex, what we are doing is treating God's own as just another commodity, something to be bought, sold, discarded at will -- our will.

 

It is so easy in our modern, fast-paced world to see people as robots, never relating to that person who is bagging our groceries or handling our customer service call or waiting at the light in front of us. When we do not see people as God sees them, we treat them no differently than the pimp or john who uses human beings only to a different degree, not a different kind. When we understand that God has provided all we need, we do not need to use people to get what we think we need.

 

So in this month in which the plight of the slave and the trafficked is spotlighted, I hear the words of Isaiah when he declares, "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." (1:18) And he continues that Zion will be redeemed with justice. We are, he says, to seek justice and rebuke the oppressor (1:27, 17). Let freedom ring!