STOP THE TRAFFIC - DAY 23

Fifty-Five Little Known Facts about Human Trafficking

For the next few days I will share these facts.  We'll focus on a few a day so that you can cover them in prayer.  The source for this is:  http://facts.randomhistory.com/human-trafficking-facts.html

Here are facts 21-25:
   

1. Over 71% of trafficked children show suicidal tendencies.^l
2. After sex, the most common form of human trafficking is forced labor. Researchers argue that as the economic crisis deepens, the number of people trafficked for forced labor will increase.^k
3. Most human trafficking in the United States occurs in New York, California, and Florida.^l
4. According to United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), over the past 30 years, over 30 million children have been sexually exploited through human trafficking.^k
5. Several countries rank high as source countries for human trafficking, including Belarus, the Republic of Moldova, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Albania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Romania, China, Thailand, and Nigeria.^l

STOP THE TRAFFIC - DAY 22

Fifty-Five Little Known Facts about Human Trafficking

For the next few days I will share these facts.  We'll focus on a few a day so that you can cover them in prayer.  The source for this is:  http://facts.randomhistory.com/human-trafficking-facts.html

Here are facts 16-20:

1. More than 30% of all trafficking cases in 2007-2008 involved children being sold into the sex industry.^o
2. The Western presence in Kosovo, such as NATO troops and civilians, have fueled the rapid growth of sex trafficking and forced prostitution. Amnesty International has reported that NATO soldiers, UN police, and Western aid workers “operated with near impunity in exploiting the victims of the sex traffickers.”^g
3. Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” video is about human trafficking. In the video, Gaga is trafficked by a Russian bathhouse into sex slavery.^f
4. Human trafficking is the only area of transnational crime in which women are significantly represented—as victims, as perpetrators, and as activists fighting this crime.^a
5. Severe natural disasters have left millions homeless and impoverished, which has created desperate people easily exploited by human traffickers.^k

STOP THE TRAFFIC - DAY 21

Fifty-Five Little Known Facts about Human Trafficking

For the next few days I will share these facts.  We'll focus on a few a day so that you can cover them in prayer.  The source for this is:  http://facts.randomhistory.com/human-trafficking-facts.html

Here are facts 11-15:

1. Although human trafficking is often a hidden crime and accurate statistics are difficult to obtain, researchers estimate that more than 80% of trafficking victims are female. Over 50% of human trafficking victims are children.^l
2. The end of the Cold War has resulted in the growth of regional conflicts and the decline of borders. Many rebel groups turn to human trafficking to fund military actions and garner soldiers.^k
3. According to a 2009 Washington Times article, the Taliban buys children as young as seven years old to act as suicide bombers. The price for child suicide bombers is between $7,000-$14,000.ⁿ
4. UNICEF estimates that 300,000 children younger than 18 are currently trafficked to serve in armed conflicts worldwide.ⁿ

5. Human traffickers are increasingly trafficking pregnant women for their newborns. Babies are sold on the black market, where the profit is divided between the traffickers, doctors, lawyers, border officials, and others. The mother is usually paid less than what is promised her, citing the cost of travel and creating false documents. A mother might receive as little as a few hundred dollars for her baby.^k

STOP THE TRAFFIC - DAY 20

Fifty-Five Little Known Facts about Human Trafficking

For the next few days I will share these facts.  We'll focus on a few a day so that you can cover them in prayer.  The source for this is:  http://facts.randomhistory.com/human-trafficking-facts.html

Here are facts 6-10: 
   

1. Human traffickers often use a Sudanese phrase “use a slave to catch slaves,” meaning traffickers send “broken-in girls” to recruit younger girls into the sex trade. Sex traffickers often train girls themselves, raping them and teaching them sex acts.^l
2. Eighty percent of North Koreans who escape into China are women. Nine out of 10 of those women become victims of human trafficking, often for sex. If the women complain, they are deported back to North Korea, where they are thrown into gulags or are executed.^h

3. An estimated 30,000 victims of sex trafficking die each year from abuse, disease, torture, and neglect. Eighty percent of those sold into sexual slavery are under 24, and some are as young as six years old.^j
4. Ludwig “Tarzan” Fainberg, a convicted trafficker, said, “You can buy a woman for $10,000 and make your money back in a week if she is pretty and young. Then everything else is profit.”^l
5. A human trafficker can earn 20 times what he or she paid for a girl. Provided the girl was not physically brutalized to the point of ruining her beauty, the pimp could sell her again for a greater price because he had trained her and broken her spirit, which saves future buyers the hassle. A 2003 study in the Netherlands found that, on average, a single sex slave earned her pimp at least $250,000 a year.^l

STOP THE TRAFFIC - DAY 19

Fifty-Five Little Known Facts about Human Trafficking

For the next few days I will share these facts.  We'll focus on a few a day so that you can cover them in prayer.  The source for this is:  http://facts.randomhistory.com/human-trafficking-facts.html

Here are facts 1-5:

1. Approximately 75-80% of human trafficking is for sex.^a
2. Researchers note that sex trafficking plays a major role in the spread of HIV.^b
3. There are more human slaves in the world today than ever before in history.^l
4. There are an estimated 27 million adults and 13 million children around the world who are victims of human trafficking.^l
5. Human trafficking not only involves sex and labor, but people are also trafficked for organ harvesting.^k

STOP THE TRAFFIC - DAY 18

Traffick911 posted:


We are posting this for our partner organization, Justice Society. Great opportunities to support our children:

Volunteer opportunities supporting or working with commercially sexually exploited youth.

Dallas training in August for anyone interested in participating on the Court Observation teams
attending Dallas County trials in support of commercially sexually exploited women and children.
If interested contact: Alisa at volunteer@justicesociety.org

Dallas training in August for women over 21 interested in mentoring a high-risk young lady (under 18) associated with the juvenile ESTEEM court program.
 
If interested contact: Stacie at stacie@lovehealscounseling.org

STOP THE TRAFFIC - DAY 17

Go to Messenger International (A Ministry of John and Lisa Bevere)

Save the Next Sophia

Save the Next Sophia. Help Bust a Major Trafficking Ring. 
Sophia was trapped on the streets of Malaysia. They had told her back in Russia that she would have a job as a waitress at a restaurant for tourists on the coast of China. They told her mother it was by the beach, and that Sophia would be able to send over $300 USD home every month and still have enough to live comfortably herself. She and her mother had dreamed of sending her younger brother to school and maybe even buying a train ticket home every few years.

Sophia and her mother trusted them, with their papers and their promises, and so, Sophia packed bags and hugged her goodbyes.

The 16 year-old knew something was dreadfully wrong, however, when the driver refused to provide her passport or a decent meal, despite her many requests. Fear sunk further as she crossed through southern China, then Laos, then Thailand's borders, only to find herself beaten, hungry, and terrified, delivered with two other fair-skinned girls to a pimp in a local red-light district in northern Malaysia.
Three long weeks from her mother's goodbye, Sophia found herself in a foreign country without a passport or cell phone, forced into prostitution to pay a debt of $6,000 USD the pimp said she owed him. She had done the math--she knew she'd never see the beach, never send a paycheck back home, and probably never see her mother again.

Sophia was a teenager, and she was trapped in the hell on earth that is sexual slavery. She had fallen victim to not just a local pimp, but rather she had become a pawn in an organized crime ring that regularly deceived young Russian girls, shuttled them through a series of bribes and connections south across borders, and into Malaysia, Thailand, and Cambodia--where having sex with a white-skinned prostitute was a high commodity, bringing the pimps and traffickers high pay-outs.

***

It's not often that the average person gets to literally play a role in busting a major crime syndicate overseas. It's not typical for most of us to actually empower high-level investigations into a human trafficking system that spans at least three countries. But seriously fighting for God's justice can lead us all places neither average nor typical.

We have the opportunity to fuel an investigative effort into a crime ring, like the one that entrapped Sophia. This particular system of trafficking from Eastern Europe into Malaysia is a well-oiled machine that will take great resources and collaborative efforts to battle and bring down. The local government and an investigative team in the field have asked for funds to gather key evidence in their second stage of investigations into this crime syndicate. Prayerfully, the teams will gather enough evidence to build a case against the key players involved-- from Russia, through China, into Thailand, and into Malaysia. The unique thing about this case is that the local government believes so greatly in its importance that they are willing to invest a large portion of their limited budget into the pursuit of it. And we have been invited to help.