48 Hours

48 hours. The name of a TV detective show.

48 hours. The average length of time a young girl has after she runs away from home before she gets trafficked into prostitution.

48 hours. The average time a trafficked prostitute has (I'm talking about one who is pimped or enslaved, which is the majority of them) after she escapes before she is re-trafficked into the same or a worse situation unless she gets adequate help.

2 days. Think about it.

Keep your daughter out of situations where she may be in danger of being trafficked.

The Making of a Girl

"The Making of a Girl" is one of my favorite You Tube Videos other than those produced by Every Child Ministries team members.

It follows the story of a young girl getting into prostitution for the first time--what goes through her mind, why she crosses that terrible line, what has prepared her. Then it tells what lies ahead for her.

This is an awesome video that really rings true. I have watched it many times and heartily recommend it to you. It could happen to someone you know and love more easily than you think.

When you think of the young girl getting into the Cadillac with the good looking young man, don't think date. Think recruitment. Think trafficking. Then you will understand better why girls become prostitutes.

Abolitionist Academy

Here I am at Abolitionist Academy in San Francisco. Our training in researching, documenting & intervening in modern-slavery starts tomorrow, but already I have enjoyed such stimulating conversation with others who are on the front lines of the abolitionist movement. My roommate works with a ministry that rescues girls in Houston, trafficked into prostitution. Another gal I've met is trying to find out what has happened to a long string of Native American girls who have disappeared along a certain highway in Canada.

I am hoping to learn from others' experiences and to go home with new ideas & skills to help us move on in our own efforts to free trokosi slaves in Ghana, Togo and Benin. We are also interested in child trafficking from the major markets in Ghana where we already have a well-established street ministry, in trafficking of children to dive for oysters in the Volta River (a practice that not infrequently results in their deaths and they get tangled in the fishing nets), and in sex/labor trafficking between Gulu, Uganda and Juba, Sudan. Lord, each child is a human life full of potential and promise, a child You love. Help us to know what to do to snatch them from those who would abuse them for their own profit and pleasure. You who came to set the captives free (Isaiah 61), do it again. In the next two weeks, let me not miss one lesson You would want to teach me. Thank You, Jesus! Amen.