Two weeks I attended an event entitled “Justice Rocks: Fair Trade Market, Music, and Coffehouse” in North Haledon, NJ. It was sponsored by The New Jersey Coalition against Human Trafficking (NJHTC), The Justice Network, and The High Mountain Church of the Nazarene which was the location of the informational night.
The Solid Rock Band, the event’s entertainment, played a wonderful set of songs ranging from originals to popular classic rock songs to worship songs. My favorite was the mash-up of the U2 song “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” with the worship song by Jesse Manibusan, “Open My Eyes.” The band played many great songs throughout the night but broke up its sets with speakers that talked to the crowd about modern slavery.
Susan Panzica, a member of the NJHTC, stated that “There are more slaves today than there have ever been.” Panzica said that there are an estimated 27-30 billion slaves in the world today.
Many victims of slavery are forced labor workers. These workers can range from the brick makers in India to the people who work in sweatshops to create the materials we love getting for so cheap. Does the inexpensive price of clothing really outweigh the price of life? Also, just so you’re aware, this doesn’t just happen overseas. There are many cases of victims being tricked into coming to the United States only to have their papers stolen, trapping them in a foreign country so that they may be forced to work.
At the event a woman named Donna gave an account of when she helped to save a man from a life of forced labor slavery.
When a 24-year-old man named Aiko left his home in Jakarta, Indonesia, he was looking for freedom after his brother was murdered for his Christian Faith. Aiko boarded a cruise ship and met a seemingly nice couple who offered him a job and citizenship in the US. The job was to take care of their children and household in Clifton, NJ for $200 a week. This was a dream come true for Aiko, but it soon became a nightmare.
When they arrived in the US, the couple told the young man that they would keep track of all of his paperwork in order to make the citizenship process easier. However, instead of giving him the citizenship that they promised, they gave him a mat to sleep on and threats to keep him in the house. The couple refused to let Aiko leave the household unsupervised. At one point, they began to chain him to a table in their store overnight so that he would not escape.
Aiko was a faithful Christian man and relentlessly asked the couple’s permission to attend the church across the street. Eventually, he was allowed to attend the church – unsupervised. Despite this small chance of freedom, Aiko did not flee because the couple threatened to turn him into the police as an illegal immigrant. He told a few members of the church his story but refused all of their offers to help him. That changed when Aiko called them one night to come rescue him from the store.
Although Aiko accepted the church’s help, he feared pressing charges due to his lack of documentation. The church offered him sanctuary and freedom. Eventually, he was able to obtain a visa followed by American citizenship.
“All this to say Human Trafficking IS real…we need to become as aware as we can be to the rise of human trafficking.” - Donna
Trafficking is a multi-billion dollar enterprise and it takes place as the second largest criminal industry in the world. It is also said to be the most rapidly growing criminal enterprise. Human trafficking doesn’t only come in the form of forced labor workers but in sexual exploitation as well. Sex trafficking isn’t just women being auctioned off to the highest bidder overseas. That certainly happens, but sex trafficking also occurs in our very own backyards.
Many people fail to acknowledge that prostitution is a form of sex trafficking but let’s look at the definition.
“When an adult is coerced, forced, or deceived into prostitution—or maintained in prostitution through one of these means after initially consenting – that person is a victim of trafficking…When a child (under 18 years of age) is induced to perform a commercial sex act, proving force, fraud, or coercion against their pimp is not necessary for the offense to be characterized as human trafficking.” – U.S. Department of State
That's right, children are being forced into prostitution every day. The average age a girl enters prostitution is 12. Boys are even younger.
At this point, you’re probably disappointed and sickened. You (hopefully) might even be thinking that you want to do something. Well, as Panzico said at the event, you have to go beyond your desire to help and actually go out and do it. These five options are how you can help in the fight against modern slavery:
1. Shop Ethically
Fair trade gives survivors the chance to be fairly compensated for their work allowing them to remain free from slavery. There are many websites that offer fair trade services like madebysurvivors.com and nightlightinternational.com.
2. Become Informed
Learn more about the issues of human trafficking and the efforts against it by clicking here.If you don’t live in New Jersey find out what your state is doing to combat this injustice. If you want to hear accounts from real people, there is a great but devastating documentary entitled, Tricked, available on Netflix.
3. Donate
You can help fund non-profit
4. Speak Up
Use your social media presence and your voice to spread the word and to protest this industry stealing billions of lives.
“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” - Elie Wiesel
5. Volunteer
You can volunteer by
Even if you don’t click any of the links provided in this article, you now know of this devastating injustice plaguing people all over the world including those chained down in our own backyards. What are you going to do to break the chains?
