It has everything to do with us

When my husband mentioned Human Trafficking Awareness Day to a colleague, she furrowed her brow, raised a skeptical brow. "Well, I've never heard of that."
Exactly the point of having an awareness day, don't you think?


We can't go a mile without seeing a pink ribbon. We're aware as we've ever been about breast cancer. We can add a dollar to a department store purchase to fund diabetes research and education. We can join a campaign to prevent childhood obesity. And if we're really feeling politically active, we can rally together in a walk or run or march for life or for choice. 

But when we talk about the innocent, vulnerable babies already born, the children who face not the risk of obesity and high blood sugar, but a life of captivity and serial rape, we get blank stares. We get "Come on, how bad can it really be?" And, "It's a problem overseas, but that has nothing to do with us."

No, my friends. It has everything to do with us.

I used to roll my eyes when non-profit organizations would include "raising awareness" as part of their primary mission. It seemed like a fancy way to justify the existence of one more marketing person on payroll without really getting anything done. But I'm starting to see how difficult progress is in the absence of awareness. No one cares about fixing a problem they don't know exists.

So let's keep talking about it. Let's keep reading about it, sharing about it, looking it in the face, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us.

This Huffington Post article by Corban Addison is a good place to start:

Reality check: There are more slaves in the world today than were taken from Africa in the four centuries of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade--over 27 million. Of those, two million are children exploited in the commercial sex trade.

::

If you wish to give directly to the fight against child sex slavery and exploitation, we've set up a donation site with Love146. Over the next two weeks, your donation, no matter how small or large, will also earn you an entry to win a Run for their Lives long-sleeved tech tee!

Thank you again for your continued efforts to spread the word about the issue of modern day slavery and our efforts to abolish it.

When She Was Twelve: A Post on Human Trafficking

If you've chosen to help us spread the word through your writing, we invite you to link up below with your post about human trafficking. Thank you so much for joining with us in refusing to look away.
::
 
When I was twelve, I knew nothing of the world and its dark corners, nothing of tragedy. When I was twelve, tragedy meant Grandpa's cancer, Coach P.'s heart attack, and a vague notion of malnourished children continents away. When I was twelve, I cried because I bombed my balance beam routine, because I fought with my mother, because we were about to move five hours away from my best friend.

When she was twelve, home was a dark concrete corner of the world, and horror was her status quo. Taken as a child, sold as a slave, she wore the number 146. When she was twelve, tragedy meant being torn from her family, raped repeatedly by strangers, beaten by her captors. She was twelve, and the tragedy was that she wasn't the only one, not the first, not the last. There were and would be millions more.


Love146 History from LOVE146 on Vimeo.

I can't fathom millions. Bombard me with startling and horrific statistics, and I shut down. My first reaction is to look away, to turn it off, to plug my ears and sing la-la-la.

But the story of the girl with the number 146 stays with me. Because I can picture her there, a child for sale. I imagine her staring back through the glass, the life not yet gone from her eyes. The millions are a faceless blur, but this girl, this girl I can see.


When I consider the grave and overwhelming issue of human trafficking, how modern day slavery stretches across nearly every corner of the world, including my own, it is tempting to throw up hands, to stockpile despair, to hide my eyes. But when I picture her face, I can't look away.

Today is national Human Trafficking Awareness Day.  Will you join me in the refusal to look away?
 
From the towering mountains of tragic stories, we mine tiny stories of hope. Of lives restored, of captives freed, of returning home.

You can help to multiply these stories of hope by partnering with Love146 in their efforts to end child slavery and exploitation through prevention and aftercare. Whether you choose to give directly, to run for their lives and raise funds, or simply to spread the word and raise awareness, even the smallest of steps can be turned into high hopes in the battle against human trafficking.