Last night we took a bus and then a train called BART to Berkeley for an optional dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant. After dinner we walked about two blocks and then we stopped on the sidewalk and our leader read the first couple paragraphs of their book, NOT FOR SALE. It said that the Not for Sale movement started when one of their leaders read in the newspaper that their favorite Indian restaurant was the center of a human trafficking operation that had brought in 500 slaves from India. The cooks and servers who had been serving their food were all slaves. We looked across the street and there the restaurant was. It was closed on Monday evenings, but still in operation. The owner, a wealthy man who owns multiple apartment complexes & other buildings in Berkeley, got off on a plea bargain for a lesser charge and is still in business.
The crime came to light when one of the girls, who were all kept locked up in one of the owner's apartment buildings, died from a gas leak in the building. They rolled her body up in a carpet and were just about to load it into a van when the police happened by and noticed suspicious activity. The message was one we've heard over and over in just these first two days: Ask more questions. Look deeper. Think about what you are seeing. It could save someone's life.
Some of the leaders in NFS told about how they were seeing slavery right under their noses but not seeing it because they didn't yet have eyes to see it. I thought about how I saw the market boys in Congo for years before I realized that after dark, they crawl under those outdoor stalls and go to sleep. I didn't know they were street children. Yes, Lord, give me eyes to see. I thought of how many people write that they traveled through the Volta Region in Ghana and didn't see any such thing as trokosi slaves. Yes, Lord, give them eyes to see.
The encouraging part of the Indian slaves story is that Dave Batstone didn't just say "Imagine that. We were being served by slaves," and look the other way. For him it was a wake up call that lead him into the heart of the abolitionist movement. For me, it the wake up call was when a young man walked up to me during a break in my very first Christian ed seminars in Ghana in 1999 and handed me a T shirt that said, "Stop Trokosi". When he told me that trokosi was a form of modern-day slavery in his country, I was shocked. I began to investigate, and what I heard and saw shocked me so much that I once described the experience as lifting up the lid of hell itself to peer inside a little.
So here I am. This morning we learned how to use the internet and public records to investigate cases of human trafficking or modern day slavery. We had an assignment to find and document one case in our area. Tomorrow we will discuss them and then put them up on SlaveMap.com. Some people had a hard time, but rather quickly I picked up on the case of Dick Drost, former owner of Naked City near Roselawn, IN & originator of Miss Nude Teeny Bopper Universe Pageant. It was disgusting and infuriating reading about the case. He had a long string of charges against him at least three times, but got off through a plea bargain on one of the least of the charges. He went to CA and opened the same kind of place, and he was clearly guilty of human trafficking. He is suing the State of IN for $1Billion and New County for $50Million for violation of his human rights. His lawyer said that his prosecution was just fundamentalist Christians trying to establish their religion.
Getting off with very light sentences under plea bargains is something we are seeing a lot. What on earth are we thinking?
It was another interesting & worthwhile day at Abolitonist Investigator Academy.
Showing posts with label abolition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label abolition. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Friday, November 21, 2008
William Wilberforce's Abolitionist Tactics
Last night a brief preview of the movie "Amazing Grace" pulled my heart again toward the movie I have enjoyed seeing over and over again. The life of British Christian abolitionist William Wilberforce continues to inspire me anew every time I see it.
I draw these two conclusions from Wilberforce's life:
- We who are fighting slavery must NEVER GIVE UP. The battle may take a lifetime and it may extend beyond our lifetimes. Feelings of discouragement are inevitable, but we cannot give up. The cause of right will prevail, must prevail, if only we will continue no matter how dark the night.
- We must use many avenues, many strategies all at once. Wilberforce introduced legislation against slavery, but he did not do that alone. He educated people to the need, he gathered signatures, he collaborated with other abolitionists, he introduced other laws that undermined the profitability of slavery.
God give us strength to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves. May every person now in slave bondage know that he or she is a valued and deeply loved creation of God, made in His own image and therefore with great dignity.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
The Day I Became an Abolitionist
The date was 1999. Boy, was I naive. I was training Sunday school teachers in Ghana with Every Child Ministries. At break time, a young man walked up and handed the members of our team t-shirts saying "Stop Trokosi Now" or something like that.
"OK, what's trokosi?" I asked.
He explained that it was a practice of slavery in his country whereby girls were given as slaves to priests in traditional shrines.
I hardly believed him. I thought slavery ended with the American Civil War. I didn't know there were slaves still today. Certainly not in a modern country like Ghana. Boy, was I naive!
When I got home, I began checking out "trokosi" on the internet. I was surprised by the amount of information I found. I made a trip back to Ghana and investigated the matter for myself. I talked with a former trokosi and with a priest who until recently kept trokosi slaves.
Since then I have talked with many former trokosi and many priests who have kept such slaves. I have learned that trokosi is only one form of slavery and that there are more people in slavery today than ever before in history.
But the day I become an abolitionist was the day I sat in Anna's* bamboo shelter and heard her story. She was 13, attending school and living a happy, normal life in the village when her parents announced that they'd be going to visit another village. It was a long walk, but as they got closer, Anna noticed that they were not really going to the place her parents had mentioned. Instead, somehow they ended up at a shrine. Her parents told her to wait outside. She was not too frightened until she overheard her parents talking with the priest and realized that she was going to be left there. Her parents left by another way without saying goodbye or giving her any kind of explanation. But then, what could they really say to explain what was about to happen?
The priest was an old man. He called her in, told her she'd be staying at the shrine, and ordered her to strip.
Now, I remember how shy and confused I was at 13. If the things that happened to Anna had happened to me, I don't think there's a chance in the world I ever could be normal once again.
Anna was paraded around naked and ashamed--a new wife of the gods. Her duties were to put white powder on the idols every morning, sweep the compound, work in the priest's fields all day, and serve him sexually at night. At least, whenever he wanted. There were lots of other trokosi, too.
"Anna, didn't you ever just tell him no?" I asked.
"Oh, yes," she said. "We all told him no."
"What happened then?" I asked.
"Then," she said, "he laid two items in front of us--a leather whip made from the dried penis of a bull, and a bunch of sharp, broken bottles. That was the only time we had a choice in the shrine," she said.
"A choice?" I asked.
"Yes, we could be whipped. When they whipped us, several of the shrine elders came in and held us down. He whipped us long and hard, but it was forbidden to cry. If you cried, you just got more punishment."
"Or?" I asked.
"Or, we could kneel on the broken bottles and hold our hands up in the air for hours." She showed me cuts on her knees from doing so.
Anna's story was horrific, but the worst thing was her face. They had carved her cheeks at the shrine to show their ownership, but worse than those scars was the pain that still showed through so clearly.
When I went back to my hotel room that night, I sat in the dark and tried to absorb it emotionally. I felt as if I had lifted just a corner off the lid of the pit of hell and looked in.
I didn't immediately see how I could get involved with all my other commitments, but I knew I had to do something. That was the day I become an abolitionist.
by Lorella Rouster
Every Child Ministries
www.ecmafrica.org
"OK, what's trokosi?" I asked.
He explained that it was a practice of slavery in his country whereby girls were given as slaves to priests in traditional shrines.
I hardly believed him. I thought slavery ended with the American Civil War. I didn't know there were slaves still today. Certainly not in a modern country like Ghana. Boy, was I naive!
When I got home, I began checking out "trokosi" on the internet. I was surprised by the amount of information I found. I made a trip back to Ghana and investigated the matter for myself. I talked with a former trokosi and with a priest who until recently kept trokosi slaves.
Since then I have talked with many former trokosi and many priests who have kept such slaves. I have learned that trokosi is only one form of slavery and that there are more people in slavery today than ever before in history.
But the day I become an abolitionist was the day I sat in Anna's* bamboo shelter and heard her story. She was 13, attending school and living a happy, normal life in the village when her parents announced that they'd be going to visit another village. It was a long walk, but as they got closer, Anna noticed that they were not really going to the place her parents had mentioned. Instead, somehow they ended up at a shrine. Her parents told her to wait outside. She was not too frightened until she overheard her parents talking with the priest and realized that she was going to be left there. Her parents left by another way without saying goodbye or giving her any kind of explanation. But then, what could they really say to explain what was about to happen?
The priest was an old man. He called her in, told her she'd be staying at the shrine, and ordered her to strip.
Now, I remember how shy and confused I was at 13. If the things that happened to Anna had happened to me, I don't think there's a chance in the world I ever could be normal once again.
Anna was paraded around naked and ashamed--a new wife of the gods. Her duties were to put white powder on the idols every morning, sweep the compound, work in the priest's fields all day, and serve him sexually at night. At least, whenever he wanted. There were lots of other trokosi, too.
"Anna, didn't you ever just tell him no?" I asked.
"Oh, yes," she said. "We all told him no."
"What happened then?" I asked.
"Then," she said, "he laid two items in front of us--a leather whip made from the dried penis of a bull, and a bunch of sharp, broken bottles. That was the only time we had a choice in the shrine," she said.
"A choice?" I asked.
"Yes, we could be whipped. When they whipped us, several of the shrine elders came in and held us down. He whipped us long and hard, but it was forbidden to cry. If you cried, you just got more punishment."
"Or?" I asked.
"Or, we could kneel on the broken bottles and hold our hands up in the air for hours." She showed me cuts on her knees from doing so.
Anna's story was horrific, but the worst thing was her face. They had carved her cheeks at the shrine to show their ownership, but worse than those scars was the pain that still showed through so clearly.
When I went back to my hotel room that night, I sat in the dark and tried to absorb it emotionally. I felt as if I had lifted just a corner off the lid of the pit of hell and looked in.
I didn't immediately see how I could get involved with all my other commitments, but I knew I had to do something. That was the day I become an abolitionist.
by Lorella Rouster
Every Child Ministries
www.ecmafrica.org
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