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.