According to Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000, human trafficking is defined as: “(A) sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age; or (B) recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery.”

Trafficking victims lives become less their own and, they are bought and sold as a commodity –a form of modern enslavement and extreme exploitation. Human trafficking is a clear need that requires God’s power for any adequate change to occur. Concerned Methodist Church members sponsored by CAL-PAC United Methodist Abolition Task Force in Northridge California were privileged to have participated in a North District Workshop on human trafficking ...Faith Initiative to Abolish Trafficking.

According to the US Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report, the number of adults and children currently in forced labor, bonded labor, and forced prostitution is 20.9 million. Worldwide, 3 per 1,000 people are victims of human trafficking. Seventy percent of the worlds poor are women and girls, most of whom live in developing countries with limited options available. Women make up 55 percent of the 20.9 million trafficked adults and children.

Traffickers take advantage of vulnerable persons with false promises. The current global economic system continues to reward wealth and exploit the poor. A crime fueled by global poverty, inadequate education and opportunity, ethnic discrimination and societal inequity. Trafficked men and women can be found in all types of establishments and locations, in rural, suburban and urban settings in the United States and countries around the world. Mostly exploited by the service industries in factories, and sweatshops.

What can society and the church do to help?

The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church, 2012 reads; “United Methodists deplore all forms of commercialization and exploitation of sex, with their consequent cheapening and degradation of human personality. To lose freedom and be sold by someone else for sexual purposes is a form of slavery and we denounce such business and support the abused and their right to freedom.”

We call for strict global enforcement of laws prohibiting the exploitation or use of children by adults and encourage efforts to hold perpetrators legally and financially responsible. (111-112)

Further, The Books of Resolutions of The United Methodist Church and the United Methodist Women Social Policy Statement on Human Trafficking addressed the issue respectively as follows:

“Therefore, the United Methodist Church, through education, financial resources, publication, lobbying, and the use of every relevant gift of God, shall join in the active battle against the modern-day enslavement of humans for commercial sexual exploitation” ~ Resolution 6023.

“Human trafficking is a crime fueled by global poverty, inadequate education and opportunity, ethnic discrimination and societal inequity between men and women and by the demand for cheap labor and cheap sex. It’s a crime that transcends cultures, class, and geography.”

Even those who have no religious beliefs should be concerned about victims of human trafficking out of pure compassion for their suffering and should help work to free them and soothe their wounds …together we can and we must commit ourselves so they may be freed and this horrible trade can be put to an end ~ Pope Francis, The Vatican. Pope Francis believes that human trafficking takes away a persons dignity, diminishing them and withdrawing them from the justice they deserve.

REMEMBER VICTIMS DON’T USUALLY IDENTIFY THEMSELVES!

Be an advocate for the passage of a safe harbor law in your State. Contact your local law enforcement agency about human trafficking in your community. If you think you have come into contact with a victim of human trafficking, call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center. The NHTRC can help you identify and coordinate with local organizations that protect and serve trafficking victims. Calls to the hotline are STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. Operators are available 24 hours a day with interpreters for up to 170 languages.

1-888-3737-888 – National Human Trafficking Hotline

1-800-799-7233 – The National Domestic Violence Hotline

1-800- RUNAWAY or TEXT 66008 – The National Runaway Safeline

1-202-488-5660 – The United Methodist Women Washington Office of Public Policy to be connected to a human trafficking team member

END HUMAN TRAFFICKING, JOIN THE FIGHT! The Abolitionists Task Force of the Cal-Pac United Methodist Church

'SILENCE IN THE FACE OF EVIL IS ITSELF EVIL

GOD WILL NOT HOLD US GUILTLESS

NOT TO SPEAK IS TO SPEAK

NOT TO ACT IS TO ACT’ ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer