HB3623 – Before the Committee

There we were outside of the House Human Services Committee hearing room, praying together that God would bless our efforts that day on behalf of thousands of human trafficking victims in our state. We filled about a third of the room as James Barta and Stacy Bellavia testified briefly and then asked all of us with OCCV to stand.

James is the very capable Legislative Aide to Representative Brent Barton, who is sponsoring HB 3623, the "HT Hotline" bill we are advocating. Stacy, who served for two years in India with the International Justice Mission (IJM) and now works for the DHS hotline, is a very active member of our Human Trafficking Committee.

Only one member of the committee had a question, a good one, in fact, asking if the Department of Agriculture could become involved. The bill authorizes that hotline stickers be sent to all businesses authorized to sell alcohol (posting them is optional), but the agricultural department can help with gas stations and truck stops. Already the state's rest stops are being covered.

In all we had 22 in our number, filling a third of the hearing room and looking very impressive, especially when we all stood. All were there in response to our appeal from the Oregon Center for Christian Values, several representing other organizations also fighting HT, including OATH, Door to Grace, Not for Sale, along with some students from the IJM chapter at George Fox University.

After the hearing we connected with Representative Barton as well as Representative Jefferson Smith, the other avid sponsor of this bill, and then fanned out to visit every single office of Oregon's 90 State Senators and Representatives. I went to visit my own Senator Mark Hass and Representative Tobias Read, and also dropped in on the office of Representative Jeff Barker, the other representative sharing Senator Hass' district.

We'll keep close track of this bill as it winds its way through the Assembly and on to the Senate in the next few days. Meanwhile we are gearing up for making this bill effective once it is passed. There is no opposition to the bill. At most, some legislators are not familiar with the issue. The greater concern we have is that while this is a legislative bill, it depends entirely on private funds and the work of volunteers to implement.

In the next few months we trust we can find printers willing to donate their time and effort and individuals willing to fund the printing of 11,000 hotline stickers (Polaris Project, which runs the hotline, provides the initial batch of stickers). We already have lots of interest from friends wanting to volunteer to stuff the envelopes at the OLCC. ("What did you do over spring break?" "Oh, I worked at the Oregon Liquor Control Commission!") The first of four annual mailings gets prepared in April. Meanwhile over this next year, we will talk with businesses who sell alcohol to make sure they are posting the sticker.

The sticker itself is currently being designed, with input from Polaris Project, Representative Barton's office and Stephanie Mathis, OCCV's Executive Director. The sticker is about the size of a dollar bill. Hopefully very soon, people will be noticing it showing up all over Oregon.

Oregon is affected by this problem more than most states. With our location on the I-5 corridor, Oregon has become a hub for the smugglers and pimps who are forcing these victims into prostitution and other forms of modern slavery and moving them north and south to cities all along the West Coast. If you want to read through more of our OCCV talking points, check the post from this past Tuesday for the link.

As I wrote my legislators, "As a Christian, I am keen to head the call of Psalm 82:3, which says, 'Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.' Not all human trafficking victims start out poor, but they all end up that way and all are greatly oppressed with no way out, their minds and bodies raped for the financial and power gain of others. I am compelled as a Believer to do all I can to speak out for biblical justice and to set the oppressed free."

If you live in Oregon and want to help, write your state legislator today, or for more information contact us at info@occv.org. If you live outside of Oregon, find out how you can make a difference in the lives of the world's 27 million human trafficking victims. Let's commit ourselves to releasing the oppressed (Luke 4:18) and making this world HT-Free!

 

 

HB3623 - Preparing for Tomorrow's Rally at the Capital

There are many steps we have to take to make Oregon HT-Free. While HT (human trafficking) is very alive and all too well in our state, concerned citizens of all theological and political persuasions are coming together to fight this endemic problem on every level. While other organizations are working to develop much needed rescue and recovery operations, our own Oregon Center for Christian Values (OCCV) is leading the way in advocating with our state legislature.


 
Last Wednesday, January 27 our OCCV Human Trafficking Advisory Committee convened a meeting at George Fox Seminary here in Portland and invited Legislative Aide James Barta to speak to us about HB 3623 and the reasons Representative Brent Barton has chosen to sponsor this bill with Representative Jefferson Smith. Our own executive director, Stephanie Mathis then walked us through the advocacy process. Bryan Colbourne, who co-chairs the HT committee with me, MC'd the meeting.


 
The Oregon Legislature meets for only a short month during its off year. That brief session started this week. The hearing in the House Human Services committee is scheduled for tomorrow, Wednesday, February 3, in Hearing Room D at 8:00 am. Since we met last week, we have been getting the word out for everyone we know to come to that hearing. Stacy Bellavia will be testifying for OCCV on behalf of HB3623 if there is time, but at the least we hope to fill that hearing room to let our representatives know that we as citizens of Oregon are deeply concerned about this issue.


 
In the January 27 meeting, several key anti-HT entities were represented. These included Oregonians Against Trafficking Humans (OATH), Door to Grace, Women of Vision (World Vision), International Justice Mission (IJM), OAASIS (Oregon Abuse Advocates and Survivors in Service), local churches, George Fox Evangelical Seminary, and OCCV.


 
The next night I represented OCCV at the IJM chapter at George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon. This chapter, led by students Amy McDonald and my son, Stephen, is affiliated with IJM which fights trafficking on an international level. On state and local issues, the Fox chapter partners with OCCV. About 20 students and faculty attended as I shared with them about HB3623 and encouraged them to write their representatives. As a result of that meeting, Amy is bringing a carload of students to the state capital tomorrow.


 
Over the weekend, the OCCV board held its annual retreat. Among other matters, Bryan reported for our committee on the progress we have been making against human trafficking this past year, starting with SB 839 last spring, which passed in part because OCCV advocated on its behalf. That bill protects Oregon's youth by defining and including "Victims of Human Trafficking" as a person eligible for the Address Confidentiality Program. Senator Bruce Starr thanked OCCV, "We couldn't have done it without you! OCCV is a true representation of God's mercy and love and the positive impact we can have on our cities and state when we work for the good of his plan."


 
In this weekend's retreat, we also took a look at our task to develop OCCV's theological foundation, a project that I have been assigned to coordinate as a theological consultant for OCCV. Our organization has had several key successes in recent legislative sessions on issues dealing with health care and poverty as well as human trafficking. It was great meeting with the board to which I was elected only late in 2009. OCCV is a wonderful place for me to call home missionally, a place I can work with great people fulfilling God's vision in our society for the common good.


 
So now we are preparing for tomorrow's hearing, writing letters to each of our Assemblymen as well as to our State Senators and scheduling appointments with them. If the House Human Services Committee votes to send HB2623 to the Assembly, a vote by that larger body will likely come up by this coming weekend. Then it is on to the Senate where we pray it will also move quickly through committee there, and on to be passed by the Senate and then to the governor for signing.


 
HB3623 should pass because it requires no state funds - and who would be FOR human trafficking? But we need much heat and light to come out of this bill so that we can generate private funds to pay for the needed 10,000 hotline stickers and to generate concern for a more substantial bill next year.


 
What does HB3623 do besides plaster a Polaris Project human trafficking hotline number wherever alcohol is sold in this State? It begins to let the people of Oregon know that there are thousands , yes, thousands of victims in this state who are trafficked in prostitution and other forms of forced labor. And it tells people that we as concerned citizens want to end oppression in any form in Oregon. One step at a time we march toward making Oregon HT Free!


For OCCV's "Talking Points" on HB3623, see: http://www.occv.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/hb3623-talking-points.pdf

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!

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.