Wednesday, October 28, 2009

TALK ABOUT HUMAN TRAFFICKING…

A mother loans her pre-teen daughter to a neighbor—an older man. For payment he will plow her garden so she can grow food for the family.

Or sometimes it’s just for a weekend to get money for a few meals.

Children’s Cup African director Ben Rodgers was ministering to a young African teenaged girl encouraging her to stop selling her body. Her response, “Why shouldn’t I be a prostitute? At least I’m getting paid for what has happened to me all my life.” Fathers of daughters, are you weeping?

Would you call this human trafficking? Mothers hand off their unnamed newborn babies to village men who will raise the children to make money for them as sex slaves. In one community by a city dump one loving lady started feeding and educating 62 of these unnamed and sexually exploited children to end the abuse. With Children’s Cup’s help she expanded her “family” to several hundred children who no longer have to sell their bodies for food or education.

Isn’t it human trafficking when a parent or relative sells a young girl into marriage with a man who will bring AIDS into her body? Even the purest Jesus-loving girl is bound by the culture to comply. African teenaged girls live in terror of the day they will be sold into marriage. This is common practice in much of Africa.

And world bodies like the UN tell us not to disturb or try to change local cultures.

This is not a problem you solve with a sermon or two.

Children’s Cup is actively using our AIDS orphan and vulnerable children CarePoints where we help thousands of children daily as ministry bases to reach the local communities with the Gospel. Winning a significant number of the neighbors to the Lord and establishing churches that become communities of believers out of which Christian spouses can be chosen offers a solution.

If we who call ourselves the Body of Christ look away and offer no help, we give our approval to this insidious evil.

Silence is sanction