The International Justice Mission is a Christian organization that fights modern-day human trafficking. I’m going to spend a little bit of time introducing them to you and tell you why I care about this cause.
The modern-day slave trade
Last semester, a few friends of mine taught a DeCal course on “The Modern Slave Trade”. I had the privilege of attending one of their sessions on modern-day sex trafficking, its roots and how it rears its ugly head today. On that day and through some subsequent research, I learned:
Women and children of little-to-no-education are the most common victims of the slave trade.
There are 1.2 million child sex slaves, according to UNICEF. That’s just the children.
The sex trade depends on visibility. Thus, one solution is simple: prosecute hard, drive it underground and starve it.
It could start with kidnapping: drugged food or drinks. It could start with deception: a promise of a better job in another city.
Deception is key: you could be tricked by somebody you trust.
Victims often become perpetrators in this twisted world
Slavery can be fought with education
In the course of that session, we watched an NBC Dateline episode that sent a crew with a hidden camera along with IJM investigators to bust a sex trafficking operation in Cambodia. A brief summary of that episode:
Why I care
I was feeling all sorts of things after watching the video: shock, utter disgust and anger. I think what particularly riles me about this issue is the utter helplessness of the victims and the cruelty of the perpetrators. What is even more disgusting is how rampant human trafficking is today (it’s in our own backyard, for heaven’s sakes: Raj Properties, anybody?).
The heartless exploitation of another human being is something that we should hate with a passion. We should despise it, condemn it, get all riled-up when we hear of it. But we can’t stay there; we need to do something about it.
There’s more to come
I haven’t told you yet how I plan to fundraise for this cause. There’s some plan to do some online fundraising, as well as some sort of word-of-mouth work I’d love to have you involved in. I hope to continue writing to further flesh out my thoughts and feelings about this heavy topic.
But I’ll open this up for discussion: what are your thoughts about human trafficking?
@ubiquiti - I support IJM because 1) my friends recommended them; they were the first organization that I heard about that combats human trafficking and 2) I have another older friend who used to work for them. This isn't to say, of course, that there are other worthy organizations out there. Do you know of any others?
Hey Andrew... Why don't you just run your marathon like a run-a-thon type thing to raise money? Or are there other factors that I haven't really thought about?
PS. This is weird to say...but I am feeling a lot more normal and confident in the Lord these days. Thanks for random AIM chats, I guess. Sorry for awkwardness. I hope you're doing well in Apple.
- Eli Tung
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that a few friends and I entered a contest last year for campus movie fest trying to bring up the issue of human trafficking. It wasn't the best job, but it was fun.
It's really disappointing to see how far sin goes in people's lives and how far morals have declined.
I don't know of any others specifically. It's just in general, dealing with NGO's comes with the choice of which one and why and I was curious how you decided.
Thanks for the encouragement, andrew.
Was this decal taught by koinonia/gracepoint people? They talked about this during one koinonia large group. But it's great seeing your passion for this. I hope we can one day starve out this problem.
Are you gonna visit berkeley still? Hopefully i can see you sometime.
Comments (6)
Any reason why IJM in particular?
@ubiquiti - I support IJM because 1) my friends recommended them; they were the first organization that I heard about that combats human trafficking and 2) I have another older friend who used to work for them. This isn't to say, of course, that there are other worthy organizations out there. Do you know of any others?
Hey Andrew...
Why don't you just run your marathon like a run-a-thon type thing to raise money? Or are there other factors that I haven't really thought about?
PS. This is weird to say...but I am feeling a lot more normal and confident in the Lord these days. Thanks for random AIM chats, I guess. Sorry for awkwardness.
I hope you're doing well in Apple.
- Eli Tung
I forgot to mention that a few friends and I entered a contest last year for campus movie fest trying to bring up the issue of human trafficking. It wasn't the best job, but it was fun.
It's really disappointing to see how far sin goes in people's lives and how far morals have declined.
I don't know of any others specifically. It's just in general, dealing
with NGO's comes with the choice of which one and why and I was curious
how you decided.
Thanks for the encouragement, andrew.
Was this decal taught by koinonia/gracepoint people? They talked about this during one koinonia large group. But it's great seeing your passion for this. I hope we can one day starve out this problem.
Are you gonna visit berkeley still? Hopefully i can see you sometime.