Recently, at a forum on fighting sex trafficking, one of the ladies on the panel stated that we have to ask ourselves what we are teaching in our society that allows for a mindset...of many...to believe that sex slavery is okay. My heart all but jumped out of my heart with a resounding...Exactly. The statement ended there though, so I threw the hail-mary in an email and asked her what she thought needed to change. Graciously, she replied, but she ended the email with a statement that seemed to bring clarity to much of my heart's cry. "...it's a huge issue and sex trafficking is the canary in the mine." I admit I had never heard this metaphor prior to the email, but Google is a powerful teacher.
When miners went deep into the earth, into the world of shafts and darkness, they would carry a pet canary. These birds were part of the family and cherished because they kept the men alive. See, if the canary began to act out of the norm, it was the warning sign that the air was bad. Everyone bailed or the canary and those around died. The canary acted as a siren in the mine and reacted to the unseen danger.
Truth is that of the 27 million slaves in the world today, the low estimate is that 13.5 million of them are sex slaves. That's a whole lot of canaries. My question is, 'how many more have to die?'. The canaries were a part of the family. They were cherished pets... So who are these daughters, brothers, sisters, aunts, mothers who are shackled by a mentality that it is okay to own and/or sell another human being...that it is permissible to rape and ravage if money is exchanged...that it is okay to brainwash another living, breathing, where-are-my-inalienable-rights citizen into believing that she is worth nothing...that it is okay to sell the innocence of a child...that are acting out of the norm and warning of an evil that has insidiously crept into our neighborhoods and homes?
Henry David Thoreau once said, "there are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." He was referencing poverty, but his statements holds true here as well. We must fight to help break these shackles, but we must realize our hearts and attitudes must change also.
Henry David Thoreau once said, "there are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." He was referencing poverty, but his statements holds true here as well. We must fight to help break these shackles, but we must realize our hearts and attitudes must change also.
" If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. " II Chr 7:14
It's so easy to point fingers and blame "them"--whoever "they" are, but this passage, this truth says that healing comes when those, called by His name, humble, pray, seek, and turn. It doesn't mention "them."
This root of the issue includes our view of sex and intimacy. Today is a mirror step. I have to look deep and get real. How do I distort and pervert sex or condone a mindset thereof?
