This VIDEO has the potential to CHANGE LIVES

Without further adieu, the video that we have been working so hard on. All about the non-profit DEPDC/GMS and the great work they are doing to prevent the trafficking of children.

Please watch. Please share. Please act. 

These kids have changed my life. Let us help them change theirs. 

The Decade of Delivery

This decade has just been dubbed the "Decade of Delivery" by the U.S State Department, which just released the 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report. Among its contents, it ranks each country based on its efforts (or lack of efforts) to combat human trafficking all over the world.

Not surprisingly, Thailand is listed as a Tier 2 Country, meaning that the U.S recognizes that it attempting to work against trafficking, but that there is still a significant problem. More importantly, Thailand is listed on the Tier 2 Watch List, meaning that they are in danger of being moved down to the lowest category, or to Tier 3 status.

Straight from the U.S. State Department's website, Tier 2 (Watch List) is defined as:

Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the TVPA’s minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards AND:

a) 
the absolute number of victims of severe forms of trafficking is very significant or is significantly increasing;
b) 
there is a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons from the previous year, including increased investigations, prosecution, and convictions of trafficking crimes, increased assistance to victims, and decreasing evidence of complicity in severe forms of trafficking by government officials; or
c) 
the determination that a country is making significant efforts to bring itself into compliance with minimum standards was based on commitments by the country to take additional steps over the next year.

 If Thailand is moved down to Tier 3 status, certain sanctions will be imposed on it, including "withholding or withdrawing nonhumanitarian, non-trade-related foreign assistance."

Thailand better get its act together soon. I personally have seen the enormous trafficking problem in Thailand. Just today, we traveled to a shelter that houses girls who have been rescued from brothels in Northern Thailand.

I am so proud of the U.S. and other governments for working against trafficking, for publicizing a report that seeks to analyse the problem and provide potential solutions, and for government officials, NGO workers, and human rights activists who work tirelessly to help lessen the number of victims in this terrible crime.

Let this be, indeed, the Decade of Deliverance.

Prostitution is Alive and well in Thailand

Last week I caught a glimpse of the underworld of illicit prostitution. Along a dimly lit street in Chiang Mai, on our way to a night market, the HELP group accidently had stumbled upon one of the hubs of prostitution in Thailand. The streets were lined with bars, karaoke clubs, and massage parlors. Girls were everywhere--they lined the streets outside the parlors, they sat on bar stools, they peeked out from dark rooms. Foreign men were around every corner, could be found in every "business," inside, outside, walking, sitting, prowling, drinking, talking. Most where old and white, traveling the streets alone. Some had already found a girl, and the ones still in the bars were busy eating and drinking with these girls, girls half their age, girls dressed in next to nothing, with enough makeup to shine through the grime and blackness of the night.

How do these men, lacking all tact, openly partake in such an evil thing?

I wonder how many of these prostitutes are being controlled by violent pimps, if any are underage, and how they got to where they are today. Choice is a complex idea, one which merits consideration when one is unlocking the mysteries of prostitution. And one which does not receive consideration by those men roaming the streets of Chiang Mai's red light district.

Do they consider the possibility that a prostitute does not choose to have sex with them, but is forced to do so, for varying reasons? Do they consider that she might have been taken from her home country and family, into a world that is dark, horrible, and terrifying, but worse, a world that offers little to no option of escape? What can you say to these people, who are our everyday neighbors, coworkers, and church members back home, and who have come to a foreign country to escape the rules and laws of their home countries? Do they know it is illegal? And more importantly, do they know that it is wrong?

In Thailand, as in the rest of the world, evil is alive and well. But here it is different. Here the hidden escape from the surface of things, exposing ordinary people to a world we would not have ordinarily seen back home. It is a reality that I find hard to grasp. It is an image that I cannot forget.

I believe in the overwhelming goodness of people, in all sappy ideas like hope, peace, and love thy neighbor. But I also believe many people have forgotten what it means to be good, and what it is to be evil. Whether someone trafficks a person, or buys a person for sex (after they have been trafficked), it is the same thing.

I hope that I will not lose my dreams here. But when I see such things, I wonder how any of us make it out alive.

Engaged in a Good cause

I have been in Chiang Rai 3 weeks now, and in that time, I have been involved in partnership creation (or re-establishment) with local Thai NGOs, ascertaining needs assessments with each NGO (where we basically ask the people what they need), and creating potential projects around each need. This involves a lot of traveling, talking, listening, and A LOT of meetings. I have enjoyed this part of the work, but was also happy to move onto stage 2, where we create, individually or in groups, potentials projects to develop in conjunction with our Thai NGO partner. This involves tons of brainstorming, writing, thinking, and research, which I love! From all our hard work, we then propose official projects, each of which must be approved by the entire Thailand team.

All the projects I will be involved in are at DEPDC/GMS, or the Development and Education Programme for Daughters and Communities. DEPDC is located in Mae Sai, which is the one of Northern Thailand's border towns with Burma. I have learned so much about this organization since coming here, and the more I learn about it, the more I get excited for all the work they are doing to prevent and combat human trafficking and the exploitation of children.

  

Let me give you a little background. DEPDC has various centres, all of which are located in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). The GMS used to be the largest exporter of heroin and methamphetamine in the world, and still is the 2nd largest exporter of opium (after Afghanistan). It is currently a hot spot for the trafficking of persons, both within the region, and into different areas of the world (exportation). This region is more commonly called the Golden Triangle.

DEPDC works mainly on the prevention side of human trafficking, rather on the more dramatic intervention and treatment side, although they currently operate a few isolated centres for rescued girls. Most of the children DEPDC works with are ethnic minorities, including stateless children from hill tribes, as well as migrants from neighboring nations (especially Burma).

DEPDC does this with a 4-pronged approach, which includes:

1. Education 
1. DEPDC operates schools and vocational training centers for children
2. Protection Program 
1. This includes DEPDC shelters for children rescued from trafficking
3. Community Development and Outreach 
1. DEPDC operates a Community Learner Center, where they teach evening classes. They also operate a radio station and a hotline for people involved in trafficking, etc to call in. Each time they do, DEPDC opens a new case and investigates the claims made, often preventing or rescuing a child because of 1 phone call!
4. Youth Leadership Development 
1. DEPDC currently operates a program called the Mekong Youth Net, which trains youth to be leaders against trafficking and exploitation in their home communities. 

In operation since its inception in 1989, DEPDC has since helped 4,000 children, 96% of which have stayed out of prostitution. For more information on DEPDC, I love their blog. 

 For more about the projects we are getting involved in at DEPDC, tune in next time!

Did You Know?

Each year 800,000 human beings are bought
 sold, or forced across the world's borders.

80% of this number are women

50% are children

Human trafficking is a 32 billion dollar industry.

The average cost of buying a slave today is $90. 

The cost of a slave during the height of the trans-atlantic slave trade--
$40,000 in modern dollars.

But these are just numbers, and numbers, after all, are imperfect indicators of the true human cost. How do you measure suffering? I don't have an answer to that. Maybe we can't measure these things, or understand slavery. After all, what does slavery mean to me, when I have never experienced it? Not much, really. But enough to care, at least enough, to want to do something.

And enough to keep the following in mind: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men [and women] to do nothing." 

Poem

Poverty defined

Three girls encased in cement.

Living in the walls behind

The oblong mirror in the hallway

White wall dust the only clue of the Secret 

Door that opens at each quarter 

Bing, on the hour Bong. 

The girls take turns—first

The Vietnamese beauty. Her black

Hair falls piece by piece out

Of the hole in the wall, her dress

Torn under the arms and at the neck.

She thrusts one hand out, it shakes in

The light, pale as bleached flour.

The pimp pulls, she rolls and

Tumbles in the white dust. White on

Black, white on white. She welcomes

The pull, welcomes her sold flesh

Rubbing against the pedophiles

And the nymphomaniacs with rotting

Breath and no teeth. Sex better than

The hole. Her muscles burn, good they

Still work. Her blurry eyes tell her

She hasn’t gone blind yet. Fifteen

Minutes of light—her only gift. Raped

10 or 20 times a day and even This begins

To seem normal.

I wrote this poem a few years ago, when I first heard of sex trafficking. I was so horrified, I could not get the idea of it all out of my mind. Ironically, this was written on the back of a piece of paper at church. I dedicate it, in all its imperfections, to the 27 million* victims of human trafficking forced to live as slaves in the world today. Hopefully, is some small way, it will give a voice to the voiceless.

*This is an estimate. As you will find if you do any research on trafficking, getting accurate numbers is difficult. This is, after all, an invisible crime. Experts put the range from 24-32 million slaves. 27 million is the number cited by sociologist Kevin Bales in his book “Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy.”

Reading Material

My reading material for the next couple of weeks....

I guess I need to bury myself in reading. Wish me luck!

My Summer in Thailand

I have some exciting news! I’ve recently had the opportunity to join HELP International (www.help-international.org) and will be working as a volunteer in Thailand for 4 months.  I will be spending the summer working on development projects that seek to prevent and combat human trafficking in the Northern border town of Chiang Rai.

As a volunteer I will have the opportunity to initiate life-changing, sustainable development programs. One of the first projects that I will be involved in is a focused education initiative geared towards girls ages 8-18, all of whom are vulnerable (because of poverty, lack of education, and their gender) to becoming victims of human sex and labor trafficking. 1 million children are exploited by the global sex trade each year; 40,000 of these sexually exploited children live in Thailand (U.S. Department of State). I will be working to prevent these girls from being trafficked through free education, literacy, and vocational training programs.

Many might question why I am going, or if I can make a difference. I will say this—what thing cannot be accomplished that is done in faith, with real passion, and through hard work?   "Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." I truly believe that we can “be the change we want to see in the world.”