Child Slavery

By Lauren Seibert, World Vision ACT:S Fellow

I came home from college in May to find my sister reading “Half The Sky,” a book by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn that explores the oppression of women across the world, focusing especially on sex trafficking and gender-based violence. “You should read this,” my sister prodded me. Dutifully, I plunked it on top of the stack of books I planned to read this summer.

As a child, life in Cambodia was very hard for Ka*. “My parents were so poor. When I was young, we didn’t even have a house,” she recalls. While many children were going to school, Ka helped her siblings scavenge for cans and beg for money on the streets.

But even amid these desperate circumstances, never did she imagine that one day she would become a victim of sexual trafficking.

By Robert Zachritz and Shawna Templeton, World Vision

In his 1941 State of the Union address, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously articulated the "four freedoms":

Freedom of speech and expression
Freedom of religion
Freedom from want
Freedom from fear

On Independence Day, we celebrate these freedoms and recognize that we are afforded special privileges that much of the rest of the world does not know. But these freedoms also should impact how we view the rest of the world and how we live out God's calling to care for the poor. In Scripture, we are charged to:

Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. --Isaiah 1:17 (NIV)

How can we use our American citizenship to do this?

"We are called to create a modern-day Book of Acts with our lives." That is the theme we will be exploring for next year! We just launched this new booklet across the country that explains Who We Are as a network and What We Are Doing this year on our campuses, in our churches, and within our communities. Check it out -- and this preview of next year's calendar!

THE YEAR AHEAD...CREATING A MODERN-DAY BOOK OF ACTS TOGETHER
OCTOBER 1 - Day of Prayer and Action
FALL STUDY - Acts + Calling – Study of the Book of Acts
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER - ACT:S to End Malaria
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER - ACT: on AIDS – Lives are on the Line
DECEMBER 1 - World AIDS Day
JANUARY/FEBRUARY - Human Wrong Initiative to Stop Child Slavery
MARCH/APRIL - Lent Study: Sacrificial Acts of Justice
APRIL 25 - World Malaria Day
SPRING - Summit on the Hill 2011 – Washington, DC

Sojourners along with World Vision ACT:S and The District Church are co-sponsoring a FREE screening of CALL+RESPONSE on Tuesday, June 22, at the historic GALA Theatre in Columbia Heights.

Come see the rockumentary that exposes the world's 27 million dirtiest secrets: there are more slaves today than ever before in human history. With thoughts from Cornel West, Madeleine Albright, Daryl Hannah, Julia Ormond, Ashley Judd, and Nicholas Kristof; and music from Moby, Natasha Bedingfield, Cold War Kids, Matisyahu, Imogen Heap, Talib Kweli, Five for Fighting, and Switchfoot, this heart-breaking yet inspiring film is not to be missed.

You'll also get the chance to hear from CALL+RESPONSE director, musician Justin Dillon, who'll be in attendance.

Doors will open at 6:30pm. The film showing will begin at 6:50pm.

Capacity is limited so get your tickets now! 

By James Addis, Senior Editor World Vision Magazine

Growing up in Britain and New Zealand in the 1970s and ’80s, I regret to say global problems of poverty, injustice, and disease seldom made much of a blip on my personal radar screen.

Not that I was uncompassionate, disinterested, or unwilling. It’s just that at the time, those concerns seemed vague and remote. I did fundraise for various causes—a better gym for my school, an effort to secure improved training opportunities for Britain’s Olympic athletes, and, somewhat more creditably, a fund that provided money to secure better care for impoverished elderly people.

But some of the world’s bigger issues—hunger, child-killing diseases, human trafficking, or the fact that millions lack access to clean water—hardly registered.

If I or my peers ever did think about such things, I suspect we might have said something like, “the government really ought to do something about that.” The sense of personal responsibility, the feeling that one could do something oneself to change the world, was almost entirely lacking.

How times have changed. These days I stumble across a young person just about every week who is on some kind of mission.

The last one I met was Josias Hansen. A recent college grad, Josias is leading a team of 14 bicyclists who are cycling about 3,500 miles from Seattle to New York as part of the Just+Hope campaign—an effort to combat human trafficking. Along the way they will be speaking at schools and churches, posting daily blogs, and aiming to raise $100,000 for anti-trafficking initiatives.

As the 2010 FIFA World Cup starts in South Africa today, there is a major concern about the heightened risk of trafficking and exploitation of children.

During the games, thousands of people are visiting South Africa, which is yet to put in place legislation against trafficking in persons.

World Vision and like-minded partners are concerned that in the absence of anti-trafficking legislation, vulnerable children will not be sufficiently protected. It is feared that the rate of trafficking of children may increase during the World Cup if measures to protect children are not increased.

Lack of reliable statistics due to the clandestine nature of trafficking in persons and the absence of a coordinated response to the problem in South Africa has made addressing the problem a challenge. Cases of trafficking in persons have not been recorded as such in the country because there is no specific domestic legislation on trafficking in persons.

Although there are 16 pieces of legislation in South Africa to combat trafficking, these are all fragmented and do not adequately address prevention, protection and prosecution, especially as it relates to safeguarding the rights and dignity of children.

Her story is an amazing journey to give her fellow villagers a better life and a sense of pride for the Lao weaving tradition. But Mrs. Song of Laha Sinh, a weaving company using natural dyes and materials, took her voyage further by helping out trafficked women.

In 1997, Mrs. Song was a garments factory operator who realized the business was too competitive, demanding and often led to poor working conditions due to pressing deadlines. The production of hand-woven textiles was described by many as one of the most prolific of Laos’s traditional crafts, she has seen the huge prospect that can at the same time provide income generation for communities. Other livelihood opportunities include cotton production.

By Anna Gill, student at Marietta College

I was a part of the planning team for the Human Wrong Initiative at Marietta College, which took place March 29-April 1, 2010. InterVarsity Christian Fellowship sponsored the four-day event.

Several of us first saw the Human Wrong Initiative while attending the Urbana 2009 Conference. Last year, our InterVarsity group did a social justice campaign focusing on hunger awareness on our campus and we saw the fruits of that effort. We wanted to see that happen again, and the Human Wrong Initiative was a perfect fit.

We did a lot of advertising for this week. This included: a Facebook group with events, article on school website main page, article in online school newspaper, painting “the rock”, hung a sheet banner at the dining hall, a lot of posters, table tents in dining hall, emails to professors, and word of mouth.