Preparing for Staff Training on Trafficking, Slavery

As my trip to Uganda nears (only 3 days left), I have put the finishing touches on our first staff training on child trafficking and modern-day slavery for all staff & missionaries of Every Child Minstries in Uganda. In two days I'm going to try to give our team a synopsis of what I've learned and experienced on the topic. Most important, we will be discussing and planning together what ECM as an organization can contribute to the fight against slavery. I'm already aware of several situations in Uganda and neighboring countries that need consideration. Please pray with us that God will guide our thoughts and our plans.

Sold 2-Year Old Daughter--For What?

I have committed myself to try to track all the news about child trafficking/child slavery in Africa or involving Africans. It helps me understand the pattern of things. (You can see my postings on www.slaverymap.org. Click on the flag and it tells you the story. My pen name on slavery map is musoniki, which means "writer" in the African Kikongo language.

Day before yesterday, I read about a man in Zambia who tried to sell his two year old daughter. With the money from the deal, he hoped to move to the city to start a new life.

Fortunately, he tried to sell her to the wrong person. He was arrested for attempted child trafficking. Yea for somebody.

But his story just shows how short-sighted this all is. What did he think someone would do with his baby girl? She wasn't going to clean houses for awhile. She wasn't going to braid hair, like the girls I learned about yesterday. There are a few extreme pedophiles who might use a two year old for sexual purposes. I've heard of that. But in Africa, she would more likely become a human sacrifice or be dismembered for her body parts. It's big business right now, and I've heard African police talk about how it is growing even as other crimes are shrinking. There are those who murder children and try to sell their organs to those needing transplants. There are probably even more who use various parts to create what they believe are very powerful magic charms, having come from someone who is young, virginal, and innocent. The father knows this. He didn't think about this? He knew, but he didn't care? A new life for himself in the city seemed more important to him? How did he think he would enjoy his new life, knowing that he had sold his baby for such purposes? The person who turned him in saved not only the child, but also the man from a life of terrible guilt and remorse. A prison term is nothing compared to the condemnation his own conscience would surely have brought him.

This man's problem shows up problems I see over and over in my work in fighting slavery: the devaluation of human life, especially the lives of children, and the extreme emphasis on the here-and-now, with very little if any thought to the future. On these two points my Christian faith helps me so much. Soon after I became a Christian, I realized that since we were created in God's image, we are all pretty valuable in God's sight. Then as a Christian I am able to withstand hardships in the present knowing that there is a glorious future ahead. May God help this poor man in Zambia and his precious baby. May he come to see children as a precious gift from God. May he seek God's help for his present troubles, for my God says that all who seek Him, find Him. Jesus, help him. Amen.

Voodoo used to enslave girls & justify it

Yesterday a Togolese woman residing legally in the United States, Akouavi Kpade Afolabi , was found guilty on October 14 on 22 counts of human trafficking and obtaining US visas by fraud. She had been a well-to-do textile merchant in Lome, and a traditional or voodoo worshiper. Her name Afolabi, which is common in Nigeria, means "coming into wealth suddenly". But the wealth she gained by her trade in textiles was not enough for her. She took girls into her home in Togo and gained control over their lives. Parents even sent their precious young teenage daughters to her when she promised them a better life in America. They should have known something was wrong when they were forced to swear loyalty to her using voodoo curses. If they did not obey her, they would go mad. So she caused them to think. It's a ploy I've heard over and over in regard to the trokosi slaves of Ghana. In traditional families, these kinds of curses are the way things are done. So the girls accepted them. They were accustomed to seeing Afolabi pray and offer chicken sacrifices in front of the stone voodoo idol in her home.

They should have known something was wrong when Afolabi had to stage a fake wedding for one of them in order to get a visa to America. For sure, these uneducated girls did not understand American law, but at least one should have known something was fishy. But the pull of a new life in America was so strong, and her parents were counting on her to send money home from her earnings.

Once the girls got to America, they never got any earnings. They worked hard--14 hour days, six days a week, braiding hair in Afolabi's salons. Occasionally Afolabi sent some money home to some families. Best to keep them thinking everything was OK. The girls themselves never got any salary at all. Even the smallest tips given by customers were confiscated by the greedy trafficker.

As is the case with so many trafficking victims, the girls had their passports and personal documents confiscated. They were denied the right to call home or to call friends or anyone. They had to come right back to their room after work. If they didn't, or if they asked for their salaries or any money at all, Afolabi's husband Lassissi would beat them. He even beat the head of one of the girls against a table. That didn't stop him and their son, Dereck Hounakey, from raping the girls, nor did the fact that they were nearly all under the legal age of consent, ranging from 10 to 19 years.

Voodoo was used not only to enslave the girls, but also raised by her lawyer as a justification for her actions. He claimed that what Afolabi had done was admirable, saving the girls from poverty. Only a West African custom. Done all the time in Togo and Ghana, where the girls were from. It's OK, because it's her tradition.

Hmm. Now, where have I heard that argument before? I know! Isn't that the same argument the Afrikania Mission uses to justify trokosi slavery in Ghana? If it's their tradition, it's sacred, unquestionable, unchallengable.

Hogwash. Slavery was our (American) tradition. I'm glad we got rid of it. Every culture has traditions that need to change.

Hogwash. That's what the jury said in Newark, New Jersey. They quickly returned a unanimous verdict of guilty on all 22 counts of human trafficking.

And now some of the girls parents are upset, blaming their daughters for "telling" on their traffickers. Why? The pittance that Afolabi sent them on occasion, a very small percentage of what she stole from their daughters, I'm sure. Never mind that their daughters work without pay. Never mind that they have no life of their own. Never mind that they are beaten, have their heads bashed on tables. Never mind that they are raped. Just send us our little pittance.
Hogvomit.

Disgusting News about Mitterand - Are we really civilized after all?

I just read disgusting news on one of the abolitionist sites I follow. France's now culture minister Mitterand published a book a few years back. Only now is he getting heat for it.

Here are some quotes from his aptly titled 2005 book The Bad Life,
"I got into the habit of paying for boys, [despite knowing] the sordid details of this traffic. ... All these rituals of the market for youths, the slave market excited me enormously... the abundance of very attractive and immediately available young boys put me in a state of desire."

Say what? Mitterand not only openly admits (or boasts) that he had sex with boys in Thailand, but he was "excited" and "put...in a state of desire" by the fact that these were slave children? It did not bother him that he was so abusing other human beings, and vulnerable children at that?

Disgusting. Utterly, abjectly disgusting. Are we really civilized after all? Have we really become so depraved that our leaders can be excited and put into a state of desire by the availability of sex with slave children?

Why is such a man still in any position of leadership in France? Shameful. Digusting. Revolting.
God help us.