confessions of a Church Girl

I am Church Girl.

I'm the girl that prayed and sang and spoke at the altar,

the one the old people loved, the one they could trust.

I'm the girl who closed her eyes when people prayed,

who raised her hands during music, who cried when

things were intense, but NOT

when they didn't

make sense.

I'm the girl who got angry about hypocrisy, about

hatred and prejudice, the girl asked you questions

you couldn't answer, that you didn't want to hear,

they were too...real,  the girl they weren't

so sure of

anymore.

I was Church Girl.

The truth is, I'm not her,

can't be her, not how you

want her.

You didn't mind if I wanted to speak as long

as I said

the right things, that I didn't speak
out of turn,

didn't mind if I 

prayed

as long as I closed my eyes and

you didn't mind if I cried.

You liked it, I think. Liked that I cried,

liked that you could inspire, could move

the Church Girl. 

You didn't mind that I cried as long as 

I cried about beauty or the right sins or the lost.

If I cried about betrayal or loneliness or doubt

or war

or tragedy

or hypocrisy...

you didn't want to

listen

to that.

Church Girl should be 

stronger

than that.

Church Girl should be in church.

Church should be out here,
out here where the sun shines,
where pain hurts, where people admit
their doubts, the fears,
where people hear.

I can't be Inside with you forever.
I can't be Church Girl; I'm giving you notice.
It's not you, it's me.
We can still be friends, when you
come Outside once in a while,
when you decide its in style.

Confession:

I am not Church Girl.

Back to Real Life

After having a few weeks to be unwillingly distanced from my experience in San Franciso, I've had the chance to describe my experience to close friends and family. Good news: Many of my friends and family members want to know how they can become a moral and wise consumer. However, my training was less focused on the supply chain and more geared toward the identification and reporting of potential human trafficking activity. I can give more advice to those who live in a high probability location than I can to my friends who just want to be sure their purchases are not supporting modern slavery.

However, here's what I can tell you:

• Download and use the Free2Work (free2work.org) on your phone to see the rating for companies you buy from often. If they have a D or an F, I urge you to cut them out of your spending. All of these companies were notified of their rating before it was published, to give them an opportunity to change or appeal. If their rating is still a D or an F, they refused to comply.
• Pay attention the news, social media, and current events; if a big name company is caught using forced labor and the story breaks, it will be everywhere. Do not give your money to companies who are using forced labor. 
• Spread the word. When you come across a brand or company with a bad rating or labor scandal, tell the people you know. Most everyone you know is also a moral human being who doesn't want to support modern slavery. 
• Don't think this doesn't happen here! Labor trafficking is very real in the United States, and even in South Carolina. The people most at risk in our area are illegal immigrants, particularly in jobs related to domestic work (cleaning or childcare), hotels and tourism, construction, and restaurants. When you frequent places like this, be OBSERVANT and LISTEN.
• Sex trafficking is also alive and well even here; those most at risk in our area are young adults and teenagers, particularly coming from povetry-stricken and low-educated areas, who fall prey to what appears to be an easy and glamorous job advertisement on the internet or an older, doting boyfriend or girlfriend. It's true that females are more likely to be victims of sex trafficking than males, but it is not exclusive by any means.
• Please, contact me or get involved with NotForSale and Free2Work to learn more!

conditions in a sweat shop…

Right now, I’m listening to a woman describe the conditions she worked in when she worked in a sweatshop making clothing… here are some snapshots of what she has described….

• no safety measures (on sewing and cutting machines)
• 18+ hour days
• days and days of work when workers were not allowed to punch their time cards
• 4 of every 5 female workers became pregnant after sexual assault. They had to continue working in the same conditions, in the same location, for their attackers
• Chinese women were ordered to sign a "shadow contract” which forbade her from marrying, from joining a religious or political organization, from organizing a union, from lodging complaints about work conditions, and more
• This woman worked in the US territory Saipan, responsible to US laws.

This woman now works for the Global Exchange, after winning an Equal Opportunity class action suit against her employer. Her story is inspiring, but sadly, so many are still trapped in sweatshops as labor slaves, even within US borders!

Musings from Day 3

"If it weren't for Christians, I'd be a Christian." -Mahatma Ghandi

One thing that gave me a little hope when I came to this conference was meeting many other people of faith here. Though our group is not very diverse (we are all Caucasian and there is only one male), the speakers describe previous Academies that have been extremely diverse in ethnicity, gender, and faith. I am pleased to find people of faith, particularly Christians, here at all.

I am perplexed at the stupidity of the ordinary religious being. In the most practical of all matters, he will talk and speculate and try to feel, but he will not set himself to do. --George MacDonald

Christians are fantastic talkers. We can talk and plan and diagram and convene until we're blue in the face. We are particularly good about talking missions. However, I am convinced that our discussions about missions are first of all, misguided, and second of all, futile.

• Talking about missions is generally a misguided practice. To the average Christian, missions happen overseas and generally involve making believers of the lost. 

• Talking about missions is also a futile practice because talking is not acting. Sending money is only a small step towards action.

Our definition of "mission work" is woefully off-target. Instead of trying to make Western Christians of everyone people group we encounter, I believe we should be working to eradicate poverty, provide healthcare, rescue the enslaved, feed the hungry, and shelter the homeless. I also believe that each of these can and should be done within our own borders as well as abroad. But I'm not saying anything that someone else who isn't smarter, more eloquent, and more famous hasn't said already. 

I always try to frame my protests against modern Christianity from Christ's example. More than anything, Jesus did two things: he met people's physical needs (healed them of illnesses, provided food, etc), and he formed loving relationships (most often with those that were other).

My skeptical heart brightens here, where so many other people of faith are gathered with a commitment to social justice and to action. I think there are few truer forms of worship than loving and sacrificing for a fellow human being. 

Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love God with every part of yourself. He then said the second greatest was to love others as yourself. 

"All these I have kept," said the rich, devout man. 

"Then sell all that you have, give it to the poor, and follow Me."

The man walked away.

We are not so unlike him. Compared to the rest of the world, we are rich, and we are self-proclaimed devout. Jesus offers us the same choice. 

NFS Investigator Academy: Day 2

I did two things today: I learned, and I reacted. 

Learning

I continued to listen and learn about instances of profound human depravity. (Snippets are captured in previous entries.) I researched cases of human trafficking in order to document them. These cases ranged from Law and Order: SVU-esque stories of sex trafficking, appalling stories of labor trafficking---things from domestic slaves to sweatshops, and, worst of all, child trafficking. 

Though the messages of most of the sessions were those of horror and frustration, our speakers smiled and infused their sessions with hope and possibility. Despite the magnitude and gross underreporting and underinvestigation of human trafficking cases, they told stories of palpable progress and gave us concrete ways we can join the fight. 

Reacting

When I first sat down on the couch after the last session, I jumped right into my assigned research, but the more I read, the more overwhelmed I felt. Also, I had kitchen duty. So eventually, I succumbed to the near inexplicable urge to clean. I put down my computer and started washing dishes. I joked around with some of the other students that I am "not normally so domestic" (many of you can attest to this) but after reading about depravity, I equated the odd inclination to a desire to eliminate a problem, no matter how small. To make something dirty clean again. They all nodded seriously.

While in the kitchen, my roommate Hannah and I set about our duties of cleaning, and then, decided that if we were stuck the kitchen cleaning, we might as well make it dirty first in a desirable way, and so we made some chocolate chip cookies from scratch. As people came in from shopping or sight-seeing or eating, they noticed the baking happening, and found reasons to jump into conversation long enough for the cookies to be made, baked, and cooled. It was empowering to know some simple indulgence (with minimal effort on my own part) created an atmosphere of community where people from all over the continent could interface and bond and laugh together. 

If I could boil down my life's goal down to its absolute core, this might be a good picture of it. I would like to bring joy and safety and community to people's lives. Whether by knowledge or friendship or faith, it is what I aim to do. I am certain that attending this conference will give me the skills to do so in a new way.

Stats to Know about Human Trafficking

Victims are mostly found in:

• migrant/transitional neighborhoods
• farming/mass agriculture
• domestic service
• service industries (restaurant, hotels)
• construction sites
• massage parlors, strip clubs
• casinos
• garment factories (sweatshops)

Most prevalent sectors for forced labor...

• Prostitution and sex services (46%)
• Domestic service (27%) ----> under-reported....
• Agriculture (10%)
• Sweatshop/Factory (5%)
• Restaurant/Hotel Work (5%)

Law Verbage...

Definitions to note....

US DEFINITIONS OF SLAVERY (SEC. 103 definitions)

(3) COMMERCIAL SEX ACT- The term `commercial sex act' means any sex act on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person. 

(8) SEVERE FORMS OF TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS- The term 'severe forms of trafficking in persons' means-- 

(A) sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age; or 

(B) the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery. 

(9) SEX TRAFFICKING- The term `sex trafficking' means the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act. 

(13) VICTIM OF A SEVERE FORM OF TRAFFICKING- The term `victim of a severe form of trafficking' means a person subject to an act or practice described in paragraph (8). 





Courtesy of http://www.bayswan.org/traffick/deftraffickUS.html

Day 1: NFS IA

Well, the first night has wrapped up and though there has been no glossing over the magnitude and the level of depravity encountered in the battle against modern slavery, the sessions ended with a finite hope. Amid the stories of victimization and brutality are tales of victory and freedom.

Things we covered thus far:

Not For Sale's mission and targeted spheres of influence

• Education
• Business
• Faith
• Law/Policy
• Culture

Techniques that traffickers use to attract victims

Thought processes that victims go through, particularly while involved in commercial sex trade

Types of modern slavery

• child (labor, sexual, soldiering)
• sex
• labor (agricultural, manufacturing, domestic)
• bride
• organ

Laws that currently outlaw these practices (and how criminals are getting around them)

SlaveryMap.org ----> how cases of human trafficking are being documented 

More to come later!

Welcome to the Real World

Some of you may know that I'm in San Francisco for the week; what you might not understand is what I'm doing here.

Right now I'm sitting in a classroom listening to Mark Dennis, the Cheif Investigator of Not For Sale and the Executive Director of Redeemed Ministries talking about various types of human trafficking and modern slavery. I'm one of 14 people attending a conference put on by Not For Sale called the Investigator Academy, where participants learn to recognize and report human trafficking cases in their own communities and are given other information and skills for increasing awareness and taking action to end modern slavery. 

Some of you may say, "H, you live in Summerville, South Carolina. What kind of human trafficking could possibly be happening there?"

If you think that, I will point you here. Recently, there was a documented case of sex and labor trafficking in North Charleston, South Carolina. It's everywhere. It's real.  And the horror is that these criminals are some of the smartest and well-financed in the world whereas these victims get the least help and aftercare and rescue. The worst part of it is that the laws are outdated and traffickers can use our own ill-worded laws to continue their work.

Throughout the week, I will try to update and share the information I learn. By the end of the week, I will be hopefully be certified as a citizen investigator, and even if all I do with it in the beginning is start a club at school or lead Freedom Sunday at church or take care to be a smart consumer, that is all well and good. Though I would like to work more actively in this realm once I finish teaching and while I'm in grad school, I am not unaware that some of my most important engagement with this cause will be bringing more people on board, small steps at a time.

I invite you all to follow my blog as I continue this week, and I look forward to sharing my experience with you when I return.

H

www.notforsalecampaign.org

www.nfsacademy.org