PQNews article: http://www.pqbnews.com/community/159468965.html
Pastors Point: http://www.pqbnews.com/opinion/160763215.html
According to www.ijm.org,
there are over twenty-seven million slaves in the world today, a higher figure
than any other time recorded in history.
We’ve all learned about the history of
slavery. We know of the millions of Africans being shipped and sold around the
world for free labour until slavery’s supposed “abolishment” in 1833. Still,
though, so few of people are aware that slavery is still going on today.
While William Wilberforce and the British
Legislature succeeded in illegalizing the practice of one human owning another,
this certainly did not rid the world of forced labour.
Today we define slavery as “people forced to work against their will
under violence or threat of violence and are paid nothing.”1 While
slavery, historically, was mainly limited to Africans being owned by Caucasians,
slavery, today, has moved across to include all race, age, and gender. In fact,
slavery takes place all over the world, including North
America , and it’s estimated that 40-50% of slaves are children.2
This forced labour includes work in rock quarries, rice mills,
sweatshops, brick kilns, fisheries, as well as prostitution. One becomes a
slave either through violence or deception. In the case of deception, a family
is typically doing very poorly financially and is desperate. Maybe a “friend of
a friend” offers to loan some money in exchange for a bit of work; the family
agrees and is completely unaware that they just sold themselves, or their
child, into slavery.
When I first heard about modern day slavery, I was overwhelmed,
shocked, and upset, but I also knew that just feeling bad wasn’t enough. I
needed to do something more. Since then, I’ve started a fundraiser at my youth
group in Parksville, Pym3. I’ve been so blown away by how willing
people are to get involved once they’ve heard what’s going on. There are
several organizations that are physically freeing slaves, and we’ve chosen to
fight slavery through donations to International Justice Mission2.
Although, in the past, slaves were freed by simply buying them and
releasing them, abolitionists have learned from previous mistakes and seen that
this actually grows and stimulates the slave trade. “IJM lawyers, investigators
and aftercare professionals work with local officials to secure immediate
victim rescue and aftercare, to prosecute perpetrators and to ensure that
public justice systems - police, courts and laws - effectively protect the
poor.2” The biggest advantage to working this way is that we’re not
only holding perpetrators and officials accountable, but we’re also helping to
prevent future cases.
Our goal is no longer to just free one or two people, but rather to
actually eliminate the modern day
slave trade from our world.
If you would like to get involved, you can make a donation at www.ijm.org or contact Pym’s fundraiser team at robalyn@shaw.ca.
1www.freetheslaves.net
2www.ijm.org
3www.pym.ca
