While many of us are living well, too many still suffer under human slavery
As good as the world seems today, there are still many who are living horrid lives in the world today (https://www.goodnet.org/articles/10-good-things-in-our-world-that-are-getting-better). According to the US State Department, approximately 800,000 people are illegally trafficked across international borders every year (https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-human-trafficking).
Just think about the enormity of that number. That is nearly one million souls, destined for a horrendous life of slavery, in all illicit forms of human depravity. They will be owned by other humans who will treat them appallingly. They will have no rights whatsoever. They will live in fear, probably beaten, starved and raped. And out of these 800,000, some 80% are female and half are children.
These people in many cases are fleeing war torn countries. We only have to turn on our news programs to find some story of refugees trying desperately to reach a safer land. Their boat has capsized, or they suffered inhumane conditions, piled all together into the back of a lorry. Many dying from dehydration and heat exhaustion. The lengths these people go to, to find sanctuary. And most of the time we can sit back, feel sorry for them, and turn the television off. Because we can.
I too have done this, I cannot look at the images anymore, because it’s too upsetting.
More needs to be done to stop this. It is the 21st Century, and slavery is alive and well and doing a roaring trade. In this age of technology and better policing, why are countries not able to halt this?
There does not seem to be a single database that can be used worldwide, to keep track of humans missing, so every country can access it, and keep updating it. It is just too big, and with information in different languages, and much social media footage out there, we have not gotten around to creating a single, go to site, for this purpose – we have the technology, we have the cloud computing, biometrics, facial imaging, but sharing data is still a problem.
In the US the Polaris Project is a large website dedicated to helping human trafficking by offering services to combat this crime. There is a hotline for support, they are building a large public data set on human trafficking in the USA, learning how trafficking works, in real time, strategies that change entire systems to specify all trafficking, and they work with law enforcement and other public and private-sector partners to help to support survivors and to prevent and disrupt human trafficking.
They also supply statistics, blogs, videos, and initiatives to help women from Latin American countries, support for survivors, and to detect businesses that are disguised as legitimate and used to traffic vulnerable woman and children. To read more you can find it here https://polarisproject.org.
There are other websites based in the US too http://humantraffickingsearch.org and http://www.endslaverynow.org – both of these are worth checking out.
In Europe, where the problem is touching all European countries, particularly with the influx of refugees, and many going missing when the reach the country they are travelling to, the European Commission have on their site, all information about how they are tackling the problem, and also projects associated with and dealing with the massive problem that is in every city and town throughout Europe – see http://ec.europa.eu/anti-trafficking.
People can get involved, simply by being aware of any suspicious behavior, activity, whether with people or businesses, or anything that just does not look right, it is always best to be vigilant, because it really is all around us, we don’t see it, but it’s happening in front of us.
It’s time for us to start looking out for each other again. How did it ever get this bad. I thought the really bad days of slavery were behind us, but sadly they are not.
Let’s start to be kind again. We have all our creature comforts, we are contented, what more do we want….it really is the truest saying that “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”