Slavery in the 21st Century

                                                               27  Million

   27 Million without a voice for themselves. 27 Million being bought for a price, when truly they are priceless.

    I remember being a student in chapel at Bethel University and the first time that I heard some these shocking statistics. I heard that slavery still exists and there's more slaves now than at any other point in history. What? How? I thought slavery was illegal? The Civil War was years ago and yes there are still forms of oppression, there's bossy people anywhere but there's not slavery. Maybe in a 3rd world country or some other place, but not America…the Land of the Free.
    There's slavery in this very city. I've never heard of it or seen it. Wouldn't I know if there was slavery in my city? Wouldn't it be on the news…wouldn't it be this issue everyone knows about that's being discussed and people working and putting a stop to it?
    The thing is this is more like a black market of slavery, as it is hidden. That chapel opened my eyes to that knowledge, but since then, I have learned more and more about it, as it bugged me. Then eventually I learned the two main types of slavery today. It's broad term that envelopes both types of slavery is called human trafficking. The two main forms that I have heard of is sex-trafficking and slave labor trafficking…taking people to be forced into labor (both types often involve minors)…similar to the slave labor we already know about from our past, but it's more secretive and not as well known about. To put the amount of slaves into perspective I googled a few things. There are 27 million slaves in the world today. Around 11 million were killed during the Holocaust (about 6 million Jews) and the slaves that came to the New World were about 12-13 million, but America only had about 388,000, and the rest to the Caribbean, South America etc. In no way am I trying to belittle what happened in our country as it was awful and we are still trying to grow from that period. I'm just trying to show that those are two events in history that were awful, the way people were treated, killed etc and each of those two events individually are about half of the amount of slaves there are today via human-trafficking. So I'm basically saying that this is a big deal today, and a huge amount of people, but it either goes widely unknown or it's just accepted, which it shouldn't! (The info from the Holocaust and slavery in the New World were taken from these two cites:  Holocaust & New World Slaves)
   As the years have gone by, I've learned more and more about sex-trafficking specifically as well as a little bit on labor side of modern day slavery.  So I want to share some of what I've learned about sex-trafficking, tell about a few incredible movies and give links to resources.
  When I lived in Arizona, I was fortunate enough to be there for the SuperBowl. However did you know the SuperBowl is one of the biggest events where sex-trafficking happens? Our young adult church group knew about this and saw that an organization that rescues people out of trafficking and spreads awareness would be in town. So with a some other members of 923 (our church group), we decided to get involved.  We went to a training with KLAAS kids who focusing on missing children, as children go missing for many reasons, and one of the big ones is trafficking. People from all around the valley came to the training and learned more. Then throughout the week and weekend, in groups, we went out into the community to look for and spread awareness. My group went around to different hotels making them aware of trafficking and things to look for. We also gave them pamphlets of missing children at the time to keep their eyes out for. After our 923 one night they did a training primarily for women on ways to help out online and what to look for etc. It was very informational, but also highly disturbing as you learn more about this awful epidemic.
    Where does the demand for the sex-trafficking come from? These next few sentences make me sick and I don't understand why it's so popular and the world is trying to make this seem normal and ok.  But there is something called the "new drug" which isn't a physical drug, but has the same effects as drugs, and it's one of the industry's that fuel sex-trafficking…it is called pornography. There's a website called Fight the New Drug -and this link is on a blog post they have on the correlations with sex-trafficking and just reading it makes me sick. So read with caution. I want to do an article on this issue as well sometime as the world is marketing it as normal, when it's not. I want to write about the affects it has on a person, relationships, and just how it's affecting the world on a global scale such as sex-trafficking- as awareness also has to be brought to this.
   I also want to give light on three movies that shed light on this, that are not documentaries. I'm going to talk about them in the order that I saw them.
  The first is called Not Today. This movie predominantly takes place in India. Three American party boys go to India for vacation...in other words to party. The main character has his camera with him and is taking pictures and gets a picture of this little girl by her father while riding in a taxi, to the hotel. Later he runs into them a few times and at one point he see's the dad without the daughter and asks where she is... he sold her. The father was thinking he was selling to a good place so she could get an education, make money for her family etc.  Caden, the American, can't believe how a man could sell his daughter and insists they go look for her. It's not long that he realizes that the daughter was sold into prostitution and the remainder of the movie is trying to find and rescue her. So this is a great movie to show what's happening in other parts of the world (trafficking happens in America too, but I'll let you know the movie that shows what happens in the states a lot). Here the father thought he was helping his daughter, but it was all a lie. The trailer is below:

   The second one I saw came out earlier this year, called Caged No More. This one revolves around two American girls and predominately takes place in Greece, as you could say they were lured on a trip overseas, by someone they trusted. The remainder focuses on a rescue as well as a process of getting bought aka a "beauty contest." I recall watching something on the news special once when I was either in middle or high school about a girl who got kidnapped and was lured into it by a "modeling" job that wasn't real, so it's very important to check things out before agreeing/giving any personal information. I was under the impression that prostitution was legal over there (in Greece), it's not, but sex work apparently is legal if you register to work it as your job (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/prostitution-the-hidden-cost-of-greeces-economic-crisis/ You don't have to read the article, I'm just citing the info). The beginning of this movie trailer has shocking statistics as well, and you can see the trailer below:

    The final movie I am going to mention just hit select theaters and was created by the amazing band For King & Country. This movie I feel shed the most light on trafficking in America specifically because the situations etc in this movie reminded me of what I had been trained on during the Superbowl. This whole movie takes place in America and it shows how this is going on right under our noses. The name of the movie is called Priceless. For King & Country, an amazing band has been spreading the message that we are priceless and for men to be respectful and chivalrous. I was fortunate to see this movie and after it's all I could think about and reignited this fire in me. If you live by a theater that is playing it I highly recommend you to go see it, as it just has been released nearly a week ago, if you're reading this after it's out of theaters, I encourage you to see it on DVD or demand once those options are available.  The trailer for this movie is below:

      Ok, so those are the three movies, and I'm going to now give a few websites that have good resources. A few of them will have links to many other links =)

The first two are from the movies mentioned: if you play around on the website it will who you many many sites and resources.
http://pricelessthemovie.com/
http://www.cagednomoremovie.com/home

Here's are a few go to websites for me.
 http://enditmovement.com/
http://www.a21.org/index.php?linkid=2319
https://www.notforsalecampaign.org/

Here's one where you can see about how many slaves work for you-based off of the products you buy
http://slaveryfootprint.org/#where_do_you_live

Here's the link to Klaass Kids as well
http://klaaskids.org/

I have heard of apps too where you can take pictures of hotel rooms to help find girls as well, but need to do more research on what's legit etc first =)

      I hope this post was educational and that you'll watch these movies, visit these sites and help shine a light on slavery today. Find a way to get involved and please spread awareness.

Peace & Love,
            Jalynn (Jessica Lynn)

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