Archive | December 2017

Happy New Year – but not for all

Dec31

(If you are interested in Lent resources, please see note at the end.)

January is Human Trafficking Awareness Month. What could be worse than children’s having to anticipate a year of forced labor, forced sex, forced soldiering, lack of freedom, beatings — being totally enslaved and exploited? (Horrible for adults, too, of course.)

Some Relevant Stories

‘It is very easy to trap an indigenous woman compared to a mestizo. First of all, they do not speak Spanish and secondly, as they suffer from poverty due to loss of their land and house in [regional conflicts], they need some employment urgently. So looking at their situation, we promise the parents or husband good employment with shelter for their daughter and wife and provide them with a little money telling them that after their daughter or wife starts work they will send them some money”.  words of a trafficker   [Stop Trafficking 11/17]

After racking up an exorbitant debt [Cambodia] with a loan shark, Kieu’s mother sold her 12-year-old for sex. The desperate mom secured a “certificate of virginity” from a doctor for her daughter and sold the girl to a man who raped her in a hotel for two days. After the ordeal, Kieu was sold to brothels on three occasions and finally escaped to a safe house after learning that her mom planned to send her away for a six-month prostitution stint.  [CNN 2013]

Tessa [U.S.] was sexually abused by her dad for the first time when she was 7. Her drug-addicted mom was too consumed with her own issues to get involved. When Tessa was a sophomore in high school, she met Jared, whom she didn’t know was a pimp. He showered her with gifts and dates, and often reminded her that no one else could possibly love her because she was “damaged.” Jared soon convinced Tessa to sell her body for sex and would attack her and deprive her of food if she did not meet her quota. He kept all of the money she made and forced her to tattoo his name on her neck. Tessa eventually escaped. 

“During the time I was on the street, I went to hospitals, urgent care clinics, women’s health clinics, and private doctors. No one ever asked me anything anytime I ever went to a clinic.” Lauren, survivor

Some Relevant Facts

A $32-billion-a-year industry, human trafficking is the world’s fastest growing criminal enterprise, according to the U.S. State Department. An estimated 27 million people are victims of the crime, which involves being forced to perform labor or commercial sex acts.

In the United States, an estimated 100,000 children are in the sex trade, according to ECPAT-USA, a nonprofit that fights the sexual exploitation of children.

Experts say that in Delhi alone, there are an estimated 100,000 girls as young as 12  who are trafficked as domestic workers.

“Whether because of financial desperation, drugs addiction, mental illness, or compulsion from pimps, women often have little choice but to sell their bodies for money. These are not people who can be said to be truly ‘choosing’ a risky line of business.” Supreme Court of Canada 

Some Relevant Dates 

Month of January is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention month.

January 1st is the World Day of Peace. Pope Francis’ theme is ‘Migrants and Refugees: Men and Women in search of Peace.’ Migrating people are often targets for traffickers.

January 7th is the beginning of National Migration Week. 

January 11th is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day in the U.S.

February 8th is the feast day of Saint Josephine Bakhita (patron saint of those trafficked) and the International Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking 

Some Relevant Actions 

Keep handy the number 888 373 7888 – National Human Trafficking Resource Center Hotline – just in case you see anything suspicious. Trafficked persons can be found in the apparel industry, apple orchards, bars, beauty salons, brothels, citrus fields, construction, dairy farms, domestic help, fishing boats, food processing, food trucks, forced commercial sex, hotels, landscaping, lawn care, mines, motels, nail salons, nannies, pornographic production, restaurants, seasonal occupations, strip clubs, truck stops and…

Advocate for international agreements that offer refugee status to displaced people. 

Support agencies working with refugees and offering them legal protection. (Of many, I note one begun by the Society of the Holy Child Jesus: Casa Cornelia Law Center in San Diego (www.casacornelia.org). It offers pro bono legal services to victims of human and civil rights violations in the San Diego area. 

Purchase Fair Trade products, especially if they expand opportunities for displaced persons.

Pray and call attention in prayer and other ways to the connections between human trafficking and climate change, poverty, civil unrest, violence.

 

Note re. Lent resources: Three group resources — Laudao Si’ Reflection Resource, Creation Covenant (Species and Ecosystems), and Renewing the Face of the Earth (Air) — are available here: https://ecospiritualityresources.com/lent/

Christmas and Migrants

Dec22

Two Christmas stories ring out for our attention this Christmas season:

#1: We read that Joseph and his pregnant wife were forced from the security of their home in Nazareth because a selfish leader insisted that people travel to their ancestral home town for a census. Mary’s pregnancy exacerbated this disruption in their lives. And when they arrived after their challenging journey, they were turned away until someone (Who? Why? How?) found a spot fit for animals that  they could share.

#2: According to Scripture, after Jesus was born, they had to travel again, this time as refugees fleeing for their lives. They endured the trip to Egypt, possibly not knowing the language, hoping to find fellow Israelites and raise their child in safety even though they were part of an unwanted minority.

Allowing for Bethlehem’s being overcrowded, Egypt’s not wanting foreigners, resources being scarce, and “the other” being judged a threat, one hopes that the travelers found some welcoming strangers along the way.

Since these stories wound up in Scripture (see note at the end), one assumes Mary and Joseph shared them with their son as he grew up. Perhaps they caused Jesus to be more alert to the messages in the Hebrew texts calling for aliens to be welcomed. Perhaps it was these memories that resulted in the famous passage in Matthew:

For I was hungry and you fed me … homeless and you gave me a room ….

This message is not political, nor is it exclusively Christian. Jesus did not belong to a political party nor sign on to “liberal” causes. Forget politics here. Jesus is telling us that caring for refugees is an essential duty, period. This message is in all religions, but practiced by some better than by others. “Nones” also care about other humans. Those who believe that “Nothing is itself without everything else,” as Thomas Berry said, know that we are intrinsically bound to each and every refugee.

How many men, women and children are refugees today? 

First, remember that the numbers consist of real people with real names, loving families, and at least half are children. The total is over 65 million — so difficult to imagine! Comparisons might help: Lebanon has c. 6 million people; NYC has c. 8 1/2 million; the state of California has c. 40 million; Italy has c. 59 million.

What countries accept refugees?

Numbers vary each year, but the top host countries by number of refugees taken are Turkey and Pakistan. The top countries by percentage of their population in 2015 were Lebanon, with c. 210 refugees for every 1000 Lebanese inhabitants and Jordan with 90 refugees for every 1000 Jordanian inhabitants. (The US accepted 0.84 per thousand citizens! Our population is c. 326 million. How many would we take if we were as welcoming as Lebanon?)

Why do people leave their homes?

People flee due to war; famine; religious, sexual, and/or racial persecution; climate-related floods, droughts fires; physical threats from gangs and oppressive governments; stagnant economies. They have no choice but to risk leaving.

What risks must be considered before leaving everything behind?

Before leaving homes, families, work, possessions, language, dreams, religious communities, beloved land — refugees know their travels will be not just difficult but dangerous. Many die. (According to the International Organization for Migration, 22,500  migrants have died or disappeared since 2014.) Women are often raped. People can be sold into slavery and trafficked. Smugglers can take their money and leave them stranded or dead. At best they might face years in refugee camps. Food and shelter can be minimal. Those with “pre-existing conditions” face special hardships and lack of medication. Children lose their childhoods plus adequate nutrition and schooling during their best learning years.

 Possible New Year’s Resolutions

If today you hear a “still, small voice” within, harden not your hearts. Here are some possible actions:

• Ask your members of Congress to accept and support migrant families here in the United States and around the world.
• Support the organizations that help refugees. Three of many:

– UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR)
       – Catholics Confront Global Poverty (an initiative of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Catholic Relief Services)
– Catholic Refugee Services
• Ask your mayor/ city leader to establish a policy of welcoming those who contribute to the well-being of the city. (For Chicago’s “Welcoming City Ordinance,” see https://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/mayor/press_room/press…)
• Pope Francis asked that every Catholic parish be responsible for one refugee family. I am proud to say that my parish — St. Gertrude, Chicago — adopted two Rohingya families that waited eight years in a camp before being accepted in the US. We are eager to adopt more families, but since refugees are officially not welcome in the U.S., our right to practice our faith is denied!

• In January, be attentive to these opportunities to remember migrants and refugees — as well as those trafficked while attempting to migrate:

        January: National Slavery and Trafficking Prevention Month. Also Poverty Awareness.

        Jan. 1: World Peace Day. Pope Francis chose “Migrants and Refugees” as the theme.

        Jan. 7 – 13: National Migration Week

        Jan. 11: National Human Trafficking Awareness Day

        Jan. 17: World Day of Migrants and Refugees

The plight of refugees is not limited to one month, but we can make a difference for them by acting during January.

Note: In the interest of updated theology, I add this excerpt from an article by John J. Collins, professor of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale Divinity School: “You have a text in the Book of Hosea that says, ‘Out of Egypt, I have called my son.’ In the Book of Hosea, the son is Israel. It means, ‘I brought Israel out of Egypt.’ If you now look at it, and you say, ‘But God’s son is the Messiah, and the Messiah is Jesus,’ well, Jesus must have been in Egypt, and we didn’t know about it. You get the story of the flight into Egypt, which gets into only one out of four gospels.”