TRAFFICKING

I'm not quite sure what has made me pay so close attention to the discussion we've been having lately. Shannon came to town and on a Wednesday night not too long ago shared many things with us about the her ministry. The one thing that struck me so hard that night were the stories of human trafficking. I've heard these things before but this time there was something that grabbed my attention. I'm not much on research but I couldn't/can't get this thing off my mind. So, I went looking around and found a lot of numbers that, even though I've heard them before, still astound me. Here are a few numbers involved:

27,000,000 - trapped as slaves around the world

800,000-900,000 – The number of people trafficked across international borders, world wide

14,500-17,500 – The number of foreign nationals trafficked into the United States each year.

200,000 – The number of American children at risk for trafficking into the sex industry.

5000-7000 – The number of Asians trafficked into the United States each year.

3000-5000 ea. – The next largest groups from Latin America, Europe and Eurasia.

Or how about the ages involved. 8 year old kids working in fields and sweat shops around the world and in the United States. Girls as young as 13-14 year old girls sold as sex slaves. 10-12 year olds taken from their families to become soldiers. Not to mention the adults that are taken out of their country on the pretense of good jobs and money to support the family left behind, only to find themselves in a field or factory working to pay off the debt that never goes away.

I'm not through looking into this and I hope y'all keep looking too. The only thing is, what do I do with all this new found information? How in the world can this kind of stuff be happening in the 21st century? I'm praying that God will show me, or us, what to do with this.

Remember, this is not only in Asia, Africa, Europe, Mexico or South America. This is happening in the United States of America.... The great State of Texas.... The very culturally diverse City of Houston.... and possibly my own community of Spring.

http://www.unodc.org/pdf/Trafficking_toolkit_Oct06.pdf
http://www.jnet-trafficking.org/
http://www.humantrafficking.org/
http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/annualreports/tr2006/assessment_of_efforts_to_combat_tip.pdf
http://www.humantrafficking.org/uploads/publications/2007_TIP_Report.pdf
http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/
http://www.cahthouston.org/

I don't think I'm finished yet...