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!

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.

Looking for Home

The boy, barely 13, huddles in the night, backpack and bedroll behind, sign in front, looking for anything - cash, a job, shelter, a friendly face. I reach in my pocket for a bill I've placed there for just such an encounter.

I'm outside Portland's Lloyd Center, mega-crossroads and site of far too many pre-teen girl entrapments by cunning pimps. This boy, he's no safer. Though fewer boys are trafficked for sex, there are plenty other forms of bondage laying in waiting.

Any kid sitting out on this night in this cold with a little bit of gear is not doing this for fun. It's no Boy Scout outing, this. Why does he sit there huddled against the pillars out of the rain and not in some nice, warm home surrounded by loving parents and siblings? Kids don't just up and run away from secure love. They tell me there are 1,500 street kids in this modern, prosperous city. Countless more are stuck in hellholes of "homes" wishing they could be anywhere but.

These most vulnerable among us have a snowball's chance in Tucson of making it to a prosperous and healthy old age, captured for posterity in one of those multigenerational family photos. The odds are extremely high their lives will be hell-filled with selling their own or others' bodies, selling drugs, numbing the pain with drugs or drink, living day-by-day on crime and the halfwits of their minds left over from all this abuse. Having escaped one hell, they will enter another. They've been lied to, beaten up by, cheated on by, and kicked out by all sorts of big people from parents to pimps to pushers to preachers to politicians. And they know they can trust only Number One.

We, who will sit in our comfortable homes and watch remakings of Dicken's tales this Christmas, are tempted to think such a dismal underworld is a thing of the distant past. But the ghost of Christmas Present comes to show us that countless little Oliver Twists and Orphan Annies remain among us -- only for them there are no Daddy Warbucks or Roses or Mr. Browlows to save them.

Or are there? A growing chorus of carolers rehearses, bent on doing something concrete to rescue, better yet preserve, these kids. Some work the nights serving them on the streets. Others plot complicated rescues of sex trafficking victims. Still others plod on bravely to heal broken families, provide foster and respite and rescue homes, and find ways to break the multigenerational cycles of poverty and abuse that feed these ravenous streets.

Education and advocacy of our citizens and public servants to stir them all to action are key. This past Monday the Oregon Center for Christian Values, dedicated to just such education and advocacy, invited me to join its board. I felt as if I had found "home" wrestling tough matters of systemic suffering and public policy with them. As co-chair of OCCV's Human Trafficking Advisory Committee the past few months, I've been helping a small team forge a plan of action, complete with well-crafted statement viewing the HT nightmare through the lens of biblical justice. No one I've met is FOR human trafficking, but it will take more than mere intentions to end it.

Last week, Stephanie Ahn Mathis, OCCV's Executive Director, was invited to an important press conference. Senator Ron Wyden, Oregon's senior U.S. Senator, announced plans to introduce a bill authorizing federal funds to set up rescue shelters for sex trafficking victims. Local organizations, raising funds for just such a shelter in our city, have been hampered by a dismally weak economy and high unemployment. Federal funds are woefully short as well. But we sell these kids over and over again whenever we refuse to act. And so Stephanie represented OCCV at that press conference because we believe that the time to act is now, not after some future recovery.

Meanwhile that boy huddles somewhere in our city tonight waiting for more than a handout. No kid picks that life as the life of choice. Sin has gotten him to that place - sins of family, of society, of those who do nothing. Repentance is in order, a repentance that includes serious changes in the agendas of this state's Communities of Faith and of "we the people" ourselves.

Veterans Day PDX-Style

My pacifist son, Stephen, warmly greets his older brother, Robert, on Facebook, "This is the last Veterans Day you won't be a veteran." In January, Robert joins the United States Army.

As people across the nation salute those who have served in the Armed Forces, my mind goes to a stat I heard on the radio. One out of three veterans is homeless. I tend to be skeptical of statistics, especially in a country such as ours where statistical abuse is one of the leading forms of rantings. Apparently, the problem of homeless vets was getting better until five years ago, with the situation worsening since. But one out of three?

There are lots of factors in such grim reports. A leading concern of struggling veterans is PTSD or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, the bane of combatants and sexual abuse victims. While we didn't hear much about PTSD until Vietnam, even the "Greatest Generation", as they call those who fought in the Big One, had its full share of veterans who came back with their insides torn up, even if their outward, physical selves looked whole and robust.

We stereotype people, not the least those we identify as homeless. The number of people without their own homes -- rented or owned -- has skyrocketed the past couple of years, as much the fault of catastrophic medical bills as of the preferred suspect -- financial mismanagement. But not all the homeless are on the streets or in shelters. Many hole up with family, friends and strangers or make do otherwise. Here in Portland, there is a division of labor with the city serving the single population and the county working with homeless families. Kids, through no fault of their own, account for a high percentage of those homeless stats. 1,500 alone are street kids, without guardian as well as homeless.

I wonder how many of the non-vet homeless are also victims of PTSD and other trauma-induced disorders -- poverty and abuse often, but not always, go hand in hand. And as much as we want to blame our current social breakdown on more recent culprits, a perhaps surprising fact is that multigeneratonal abuse and poverty go a long ways back. If we didn't heal the wounds in 1900, we probably were dealing with the effects of those unhealed wounds in 2000.

I was early for my appointment with Naomi Lambertson, co-chair of the Oregon Center for Christian Values. Veterans Day closings were creating an extended morning boom at Peets' Coffee Shop in the Lloyd Center district, the holiday encouraging a more leisurely attitude among coffee drinkers.

A woman was peddling a local paper. The rag -- "Street Roots" -- is published by an organization with the same name, an organization by the homeless promoting the concerns of the homeless. "Jan" graciously answered my questions, explaining how out of every dollar, she was able to keep 75 cents. Jan was aggressive in a very charming sort of way and she answered that 9 out of 10 people she approached responded warmly, even if they didn't buy a paper. Occasionally a heavy tipper more than made up for the other 10%.

Prompted by what I hoped were my nonintrusive questions, Jan shared about her son, apparently quite a scholar, studying political science at a college in California. He was obviously the star in her otherwise dark world. I have no idea the causes of her homelessness. She did venture that sometimes she slept outside and sometimes found a welcome in someone else's digs. Jan is not a war veteran, at least not a foreign war. But she's obviously fought some battles of her own and keeps on fighting through some unnamed inner resolve, perhaps because of her son.

We chatted amiably until Naomi showed up. As Naomi and I walked away in search of a shop with vacant seats, I thought of Jan, reminding myself that in this cashless age, it is still good to carry some pocket change. I also thought of all the war-ravaged "veterans of foreign wars" as we called them when I was a kid -- and of all the veterans, young and old, victims of other wars closer to home, the wars on poverty, abuse, indifference and hatred. And I thought of my sons -- and daughters -- and prayed that, whatever might come their lot in life, they would follow Jesus by never growing calloused toward the poor, the so-called "worthy" or otherwise.

A Time for Action

Amazing to think that the difference between a bill passing or not passing in the Oregon State Legislature this past spring was a push by our tiny team at the Oregon Center for Christian Values. But that was precisely the case with Senate Bill 839, otherwise known as the “Confidentiality Bill,” which in the end passed both houses unanimously.

Simply put, the Confidentiality Law provides anonymity to rescued victims of human trafficking. A lobbyist for another nonprofit with ties to OCCV alerted our leadership who sent a volunteer to testify. Why would the bill not have passed if there was no opposition? Voter interest or lack thereof made all the difference in the world.

That was the start of OCCV’s involvement in domestic human trafficking concerns, an area of vital need we are now addressing alongside related issues like poverty and health care. Last night we had the second meeting of the OCCV Human Trafficking advisory committee. We reviewed various recommendations for a course of action in the next couple of years and decided to meet again on November 9. What we agreed on last night was that in the November meeting we will come up with a specific plan of action to present to the OCCV board for their approval before the end of the year.

We’re particularly interested in pushing through a bill in February’s short legislative session. There is no funding available for anything that is money-intensive, so we are thinking that a simple step low in cost concerns may be the best option for now.

This bill, at least as it is currently envisioned, would require the posting of the Polaris Project hotline wherever alcohol is sold. This national hotline number is 1-888-3737-888. A piece of legislation like this seems so minor compared with the massive need facing us, but every step counts. The ubiquitous posting of this hotline would promote the issue itself, much as the amber alert has done for missing kids, and raising awareness (education) is key to getting more extensive legislation passed in the next session.

A more aggressive approach would be to pass something along the lines of the New York Safe Harbor Act, but there is no way to get such a major bill through the state legislature in this biennium. The problem is not opposition, but lack of state funds and also a lack of time due to the very brief nature of February’s session. New York passed its bill a couple years back and the governor duly signed it, but to this date, there’s been no money to implement it. So the feeling is to push for the hotline bill now and then go for the bigger bill in 2011, when, hopefully, budgeting concerns have eased.

Why is a safe harbor act is so important? The city’s sex crimes unit works along the guidelines of the safe harbor act already, treating minors as victims instead of criminals. However, the police in other units arrest and treat the girls as adults (prostitutes), because it is the law they have to follow. Even if they go light on them, they are not approaching these underage girls as victims.

There are many levels at which we can address human trafficking – national, county and city, as well as state. On the city level, we can advocate with City Commissioner Saltzman to get more personnel into the Sex Crimes Unit. Presently there are three personnel, counting a sergeant, for a city the size of Portland. There is a great need to push for more officers "out there". Apparently it is more a matter of priorities and citizen response in contrast to funding, as the idea is to transfer existing personnel from other units. On this issue, we also do not have to wait for a legislative session to begin.

On the county level, I understand Commissioner McKeel's office is considering a "john school". While this was tried by Multnomah County back in the ‘90s, lessons learned back then could ensure a much better run this time. The idea is to go with something like the D.C. or San Francisco model, with a "school" for first offenders. Talks could be given by the D.A., judges, ex-victims, etc., as a means of showing what impact the johns' actions are having. Each john would be charged a $1,000 fine to attend the school. If they comply both to the fine and to school attendance and they don't commit a second offense within 6 months, then the 1st offense would be kept off their record. A second offense would go on their record.

This school is a way of working to stop the john activity up front. And it seems to be having some effect in these other cities. The fine money in San Francisco is divided between the D.A.'s office to help prosecute the crimes, the Police Department to help them in their pursuit of these criminals, and for victim services. Basically it is relatively cost neutral. It could be done here on a county-wide level to fight prostitution in general and as a way of getting at those who encourage sex trafficking, since the market is consumer driven.

I’ve asked about how we can work on solving the pimp side of problem. What I hear is that, with pimps as well as the victims, the issue is a state problem primarily with the fairly broken foster care system, which produces a high percentage of prostitutes and pimps. But such systemic issues need long-range approaches.

It is so easy to be overwhelmed with the need or to throw up our hands in dismay at how slowly things move. Yet even small steps are better than no steps. It takes time to build a base for advocacy and education, something we as a committee and OCCV are committed to doing.