*UPDATE – 2 girls were rescued from the S.O.A.P. event in Detroit for the auto show!
With all that is going on in India and the outcry over the abuse of women living there, it is another huge red flag about the issue of human trafficking in the world that we cannot ignore. However, we must recognize that human trafficking is also right here in the United States. It’s our problem too.
Gone are the excuses that this isn't a 3rd world country, so there's nothing I can do. You don't have to buy a ticket anywhere.
- Child/Human Trafficking is one of the fastest growing crimes in the world. Child/Human Trafficking is the world’s second largest criminal enterprise, after drugs.
– U.S. State Department - The global market of child trafficking at over $12 billion a year with over 1.2 million child victims.
– UNICEF - As many as 2.8 million children run away each year in the US. Within 48 hours of hitting the streets, one-third of these children are lured or recruited into the underground world of prostitution and pornography.
– The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
There are so many great resources for families to know how to protect their children from this crime and also to help victims of human trafficking on the internet. I want to highlight one of those that I participated in this past weekend. My goal is to let you know how simple it is for you to be a part of something big. It was not intimidating or too hard for anyone to participate. This is something you can do. The organization is called S.O.A.P. Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution.
SOAP is an outreach that aims to distribute thousands of bars of soap with the National Human Trafficking Hotline number and key identifying questions FREE to local motels. Volunteers talk to motel owners and managers and provide them with a quick overview of what is happening to young girls in their hotels. – http://www.traffickfree.com
And this is exactly what we did. We started in the morning at 9:30am with a session on what human trafficking is, how to identify those involved and how it’s a problem here in the United States. We then had a brief training on what our teams would be doing when we deliver the soap. We then packaged up the amount of soap we needed to take to our list of hotels and took off. It was like a scavenger hunt for adults. We had tons of fun, believe it or not!
It was a simple as having a conversation. We encouraged hotel staff to partner with us in finding missing local children before the Detroit Auto Show came into town. Many missing children show up during these types of events that draw large crowds. The conversation about missing children sometimes led into a conversation about human trafficking. We went to 13 hotels that were either very luxurious or pretty seedy. Only 2 refused the bars of soap for the rooms.
I think this event is such a great way to be a part of a solution. There was no big “show” to get us pumped up. We had a basic training on what the problem is and what we were going to do and then we did it. The simplicity of the event was brilliant.
I pray that over the next 2 weeks those bars of soap would be an avenue for rescuing children in their most desperate moments, those moments of washing up between jobs during their "alone" time at their place of work in hotels all over Detroit.
S.O.A.P. has had great success in finding missing children over the past few years and helping to rescue kids. It’s all through the monetary donations of soap, those who hold S.O.A.P. outreaches, the many volunteers who take the soap to the hotels, the staff that use the soap and train their employees and any of those who call in tips of trafficking by using the national hotline.
This is a problem in our country and we need to provide a rescue for our children who are modern day slaves and don’t know what to do. My prayer is that this problem makes you angry enough to get involved. Please take a look at the upcoming S.O.A.P outreaches in your community on their website. http://www.traffickfree.com
I think about last August when I watched a man drown in Lake Huron. Everyone watched it happen doing nothing to help rescue him. I wrote about the experience in a previous blog. It made me very angry that people acted like it was none of their business to step in and help a stranger.
If you’ve ever watched the show What Would You Do?, you know how many times people walk right on by when another human being is in desperate need for help. We all know what is the right thing to do. So why is it that we do nothing? Do what you know is right and be a part of the solution. It is your business to step in and help a stranger just as much as it is mine.
We act horrified and ashamed when we study, watch a movie or read a book about slavery in America's history. We assume that if we were there, we'd step it up and do something about it. William Wilberforce on the subject of slavery said the following: “You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.” This is modern day slavery. It's happening now.
Don’t look away.
To read about real stories of real children just like those that still need our help, click here!
