Rachel Sparks, I'd Love to Meet You

I'm a displaced Hoosier, so it warms my heart to see a fellow Indiana girl like Rachel Sparks taking the lead to raise awareness about child sex trafficking throughout the state, and the country.  Rachel, if you're ever in the Northeast, give me a shout and I'd love to grab coffee with you--and see your documentary.

My mother actually called me this week to tell me about an Indianapolis Star article she saw highlighting a woman with a passion for ending child sex slavery: a woman who happens to be named Rachel Sparks.  Rachel has produced, and is currently promoting, her documentary The SOLD Project: Thailand, which is described as "a collection of short films showing the reality of child prostitution in Thailand.  The central theme to our media is that hope exists, though this issue is dark and complex." 

I'm so impressed with the looks of this film, what The SOLD Project is doing, their realistic optimism and handling of this cause, and their dedication to doing something big.  After you're done reading this post I would recommend jumping over to their website, and maybe even Rachel's blog.  And all of you great people at SOLD, if you happen to catch this blog, let me know what I can do to help--it would be an honor.  

The SOLD Project: Thailand trailer from The SOLD Project on Vimeo.

Sowing Beauty

This post will be most relevant to those of you that live near the Boston area--but I think it tells a wider story of beauty that is worth hearing, wherever you may live.

Under the vision of a woman named Teresa Fung, a small, elegant fresh flower design studio named Mimosa set up shop on Pembroke Street in Boston, MA. Mimosa is known for its gorgeous bouquets and arrangements, and has even been recognized on Grace Ormonde's Platinum list, but I think its dedication to helping trafficked women and children is what makes this business really stand out. Mimosa's goal is to try to buy sustainable and fair trade flowers as much as possible, and 10% of their profits go to help women and children who have been trafficked in Southeast Asia.

I'm a tiny bit late for the Valentines rush--but the next time you want to show love to someone, send flowers to your sweetheart (ahem) :), or even think you might take a trip down the aisle at some point soon--think about someplace like Mimosa that offers the world something beautiful, in so many ways.

AP: FBI, Police Rescue Child Prostitutes Around U.S.

Important story making the rounds in today's news. Operation Cross Country continues to net some large underage trafficking rings. Some of the girls rescued were as young as 13, in cities across the nation. You can read it here.

The most significant part of the story, I think, is the note that historically the feds weren't involved in prostitution cases, but they are getting more involved in order to rescue children ensnared in "the business." I'm glad to see our government taking a more active interest, and role, in identifying this problem and taking steps to do something about it.

Photo by ©athrine

A Look at Lobby Day

Thanks to a blog I just found written by Eric Echols, I wanted to show you this inspiring video about 40 college students who lobbied the Georgia State Capital building to fight child sex trafficking a few weeks ago.

There are so many awesome people out there who aren't willing to sit back and let this happen, any more. 

Are you inspired?

Thanks Eric! 

Lobby Day from Brandon McCormick on Vimeo.

Helen Bamber

...has a new, and very effective, ad campaign.
Watch it here.

Some Big News, and Isaiah 6:8

I am so excited, honored, and privileged to let you know that I have been accepted to go with Love146 on a partnership trip to Southeast Asia in a few months.

I can't wait to share with you the time leading up to our departure, the things that I'm going to see and learn, and this next step forward in a journey toward helping these children with such an amazing organization.     

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to Love146.  I know this trip will be one of the most important and life-changing things I ever do.  

Love,

Emily 

Conversations

On Sunday, while manning the Love146 booth at the Cambridge Vineyard, I had the opportunity to meet the delightful Dominic Chavez and his beautiful wife, Sylvia.  Dominic stopped by our table and was very interested to hear more about what Love146 was doing.  He has quite a background in firsthand experiences around the major issues that affect humanity--all from just behind the camera lens.  

Photo by Katie_Photographer

While we only got the chance to talk for a few minutes, Dominic raised some really good points.  Namely, he wanted to be sure that organizations fighting child trafficking aren't actually playing a definitive role in its cycle.  He mentioned that in his travels he's seen well-meaning groups purchase children to free them, only to create more demand for traffickers to take advantage of.  This brought up one of the things I love most about Love146.  They understand that ending child trafficking unfortunately won't end with a massive raid on brothels, or simply "buying" children out of the lifestyle.  Instead they put their biggest efforts toward preventative measures aimed at educating communities and their children to protect them from being deceived; while also providing safehomes, counseling, and new education and occupational opportunities for children rescued from the sex trade.

A lot of time, effort, research, and care has gone into organizations like Love146 to make sure that they're part of the solution, and not contributing to the problem.  See the award-winning, absolutely stunning work that has taken Dominic to over 38 countries to document issues from war to intense poverty to AIDS here.  And I am thankful for people like Dominic who can see beyond the immediate solution to ask the harder questions, and to make sure that we're doing what's the very best for these most deserving children.

Valentines Weekend

We celebrated the day of love by making more beloved quilts for children rescued from the sex trade.

A few of the quilters got their hands on the word "beloved" translated into Khmer.  I think that they are absolutely beautiful: 

And here's the one I've been working on:

I also got the chance to man a table after church at the Vineyard and share with people about Love146 and the reality of child sex trafficking with the wonderful Jaime Babstock.  We are always so encouraged by the amount of people who care and want to help!

Hope you had a great Valentines weekend, too. ♥

P.S. Stay tuned for some BIG news coming up :)  Can't wait to share it with you.

Tune in on Sunday

For an MSNBC special on underage sex trafficking in the U.S. "Sex Slaves: The Teen Trade" will air at 10 p.m. ET on Sunday, February 15.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

MSNBC.com also posted a story about Theresa Flores, a woman who was trafficked and regularly exploited at 15 years old while still living at home with her parents. Some stats on Theresa's website, TraffickFree.com, might be even more shocking:

• The FBI calls northwest Ohio one of the top recruiting locations for underage prostitution.
• Federal investigators recently charged 31 men and women with herding teens, including at least nine girls from northwest Ohio across state lines as sex slaves.

The stories continue to come out, across the U.S. as the spotlight gets turned up. Let's hope that soon there's nowhere dark left to hide.

Women and the Crime that Shames Us All

Time to wake up, women--we're a big part of the problem.

The UN just released a report saying that in a third of the 155 countries surveyed, women were the majority traffickers.  

Most had been originally pulled into human trafficking themselves, and now perpetuate the cycle--a cycle that is projected to get even more devastating as the financial crisis worsens.

Antonio Maria Costa,  director of the U.N. office on drugs and crime, says

"More must be done to reduce the vulnerability of victims, increase the risks to traffickers, and lower demand for the goods and services of modern-day slaves."

The driver behind human trafficking, according to the findings, is overwhelmingly for sexual exploitation--making up approximately 79% of all cases.  63% of the 155 countries have adopted laws against human trafficking, but only since the UN implemented a protocol in 2003.  

You can view the report in full here, and the AP story here.  The bottom line that the report makes is that the world is in denial about the reality of sex trafficking.  The UN's findings are heartbreaking to me.  Human trafficking is called the crime that shames us all, and tonight I am truly ashamed.   

Photo by _Nia_

On the Bookshelf

When I get a spare minute from working, driving, eating, grocery shopping, sewing, blogging, and playing that so-darn-addictive Blackberry Brickbreaker game, I'm going to read this book next: (you'll notice "going to the gym" conveniently wasn't on that list...)

The book's description says,

"On the black market, they're the third most profitable commodity, after illegal weapons and drugs--the only difference being that these goods are human, though to their handlers they are wholly expendable.  They are women and girls, some as young as 12, from all over the Eastern bloc, where sinister networks of organized crime have become entrenched in the aftermath of the collapse of Communist regimes.  In Israel, they're called Natashas, whether they're actually from Russia, Bosnia, the Czech Republic, or Ukraine... They often have nowhere to turn; in many cases, the men who should be rescuing them--from immigration officials to police officers and international peacekeepers--are among their aggressors."

 The Natashas was written by a Canadian journalist and is pretty recent, having been published in 2005.  After this I'm going to try to get my hands on a copy of Siddarth Kara's brand new book, "Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery."  Carrie, a fellow Love146 Boston taskforce member, is reading it now--and then hopefully we'll do a book switch.  

Courtesy of Amazon, you can watch Siddharth Kara talk about his book here.  

Read anything else lately on the subject that you'd recommend? Let me know and I'll add it to my list.  

The Good News and the Bad

Lots of news in the past few weeks on human trafficking cases, child prostitution busts and child porn arrests--across the U.S., including Missouri, a few in California, and Florida.

Not to mention the discovery of a sex trafficking ring in India that makes you realize the stories in movies and TV miniseries on this subject are based on straight-up fact.  

Some of these stories make me sick to my stomach.  But I find that there's always something else that comes out to give us hope.  In this week's news, that honor goes to Carlson Hotels--including Radisson, Regent, and Park Plaza properties.  Carlson Hotels raised $300,000 in 2008 to fight child trafficking.  Fundraising activities ranged from selling custom-made keychains to a London triathlon to an event in Dubai where the management served as valet parkers and bellboys to raise awareness.

Thank you, Carlson Hotels, for doing your part and giving me hope for a new day.

Tough Questions and Trashy TV

I'm a TLC junkie.  I've been through Trading Spaces kicks, What Not to Wear marathons... and now I'm obsessed with Jon and Kate + 8.  Unfortunately that means I've seen that awful Toddlers and Tiaras ad approximately... 100 times.

I actually watched about fifteen minutes of the show last week, flipping back and forth between that and ABC News' "What Would You Do?"  Two things struck me during this highly thought-provoking fifteen minute span.  

The first was an almost visceral reaction to the toddler pageants.  After constantly reading and writing about the forced sexualization of children to be sold and raped for profit, it was hard to see five-year-old girls' mothers putting them in backless evening gowns with veneers, mascara, and spray tans.  Why would you ever want to overtly sexualize your little girl?  This isn't dressing up like a princess to play in your basement or take a trip to Disneyland.  Apparently some Canadian teens feel the same way and have been petitioning for TLC to stop running and promoting the show.   What do you think--is this harmless fun, or is there something morally wrong with the way these girls are being presented to the rest of world?  And if that's the case, is there anything we should (or can) do about it?

The second thing that struck me came when I was watching "What Would You Do?"  It's a scenario show, similar to Candid Camera, where people are anonymously filmed reacting (or not reacting) to moral situations.  The one I saw showed a crying baby locked in a hot car parked on the street; a man harrassing a woman at a restaurant; and a mother verbally abusing her nanny in the middle of a coffee shop.   It was so interesting to me to watch the different ways people reacted.  They seemed to immediately know that the situation was absolutely wrong, but some people simply chose to ignore it and walk away.  Afterward, the host would stop them and ask, why didn't you say something or intervene?  And they would mostly answer that they either didn't think it was their business, or they didn't know what to do.  As I was watching the show I was confronted by an interesting reality: I wanted so badly for the people walking by to stop and DO something--but I wondered if I would honestly stop and do something if I were put in that situation.

Why is it so hard sometimes to intervene on behalf of justice--even if we know it's the right thing?   I'm a very nonconfrontational person.  But I don't want to be the kind of person who just keeps on walking, ever again.  

What We Don't Know

...Hurts us all.

Valentines Day is Coming Up....

...How will you show love?

THANK YOU GEORGE CLOONEY

I actually had another post planned for today but I just found out about an upcoming documentary executive produced by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney and I was too excited not to write about it.

The movie is called "Playground" and I think it is going to blow the lid off of awareness around child sex trafficking, especially in the United States. Here's some background on how the project came about in the first place:

"While traveling to the Philippines in 2001, filmmaker Libby Spears gained first hand knowledge of the horrific practice of trafficking human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation. She examined a little deeper, and discovered that most of these victims were young children.

Facing death threats to be “knocked off” for only $10, Libby went undercover to infiltrate brothels in South Korea and Thailand. She held first-hand interviews with victims, their pimps, and their abusers. She mapped the trafficking routes of the sex tourism industry, and charted the commerce fueled by the purchase and sale of minors—she was disheartened to find that virtually the entire globe was involved and affected by this growing industry.

What she was astonished to find, however, was the involvement of the United States and the degree to which they were influencing the global demand and growth of the sex trafficking industry.

Previously, she had mistakenly believed that sex trafficking was primarily an “international” occurrence in countries like Philippines and Cambodia. But a meeting with Ernie Allen, President of the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children, confirmed to Libby what her research was beginning to uncover: that the trafficking of children for commercial sexual exploitation is every bit as real in North America.

This is where Playground begins."

Besides having the backing of Hollywood powerhouses Soderbergh and Clooney, the documentary will include music by Bjork, Radiohead, Chris Martin, Blonde Redhead, Cat Power, Sigur Rós, CocoRosie, Basement Jaxx, DJ Shadow, Kazu Makino.

You can tell, even by the preview below, that this is going to be one of the hardest things you've ever had to see. But I hope that you do. And I'm committing right now to do whatever I can to make people aware of this film, and urge them to see it. By pretending this doesn't exist we are only hurting the children we should most want to protect.

Could this be the film that marks the beginning of the end for the child sex industry in America?

Progress

I did a quick search today on some of my favorite justice websites and found two areas where major progress is being made in the fight against child sex trafficking. If that doesn't make your Tuesday, I don't know what will.

First, if you don't read the Love146 blog, I would recommend that you check it out! Desirea Rodgers posted a few picture updates on the construction of the Round Safehome Love146 is building.

I love that this building is going to be full of the restoration and care that these girls so desperately need and deserve--and I hope that someday it is a place marked with joy.

Another piece of good news comes from the International Justice Mission site, which says that it has entered into an official partnership with Guatemala's Public Ministry so that together, the two groups can serve child victims of sexual exploitation.

I really liked what IJM Guatemala Director Pablo Villeda had to say:

“We look forward to the day that all Guatemalans, especially the poor and vulnerable, find a fair response to their demand for justice. For this task, [the Public Ministry] is not the sole responsible party: We are all responsible.”

One step at a time, this is our progress.

"Think Education is Expensive?

... Try ignorance."

So says one of my mother's favorite bumpersticker quotes... but the good news for today is that some prime education is FREE for the month of February.

Christianaudio.com is actually offering David Batstone's renowned book on modern-day slavery, "Not for Sale," for free as an audiobook download. We read the first chapter as part of our education process during the beginning stages of the Love146 Boston taskforce, and it is eye-opening. I'll be downloading this and listening to it during my favorite part of the day, my commute (yes, that is sarcasm).

To get the download for free, use the code FEB2009 during checkout--and let me know what you think!

Taken: Part Two

Greg has yet another test on Monday so we made going to see "Taken" a reward for doing a lot of studying yesterday.  We went to the 10:10 p.m. showing, and now that I've actually seen it I can give you my thoughts--one of which is that whoever rated this movie PG-13 might want to consider a new career.  

While some of the plot was pretty unbelievable, and overall I don't think it will making an appearance on my "favorite movies" list, there were a number of things I really liked about Taken.  Like I mentioned in my last post, anytime a heavily promoted movie brings up the issue of sex trafficking, I'm hopeful that at least some of the viewers will walk away with a new sense of awareness.  One of the major things I really liked about the film was its setting in Paris, as opposed to a third-world vacation spot.  Trafficking happens in every country, and likely every major city in the world.  To set a kidnapping and sophisticated sex slavery ring in a place like France, as opposed to a third-world country better "known" for sex trafficking, ups the reality factor that this happens everywhere.  

I liked that by positioning the film around a father's love for his daughter, sex trafficking and forced prostitution becomes infinitely more personal.  This happens every day, to someone's daughter, sister, friend.  And that should matter to us.

Another thing I liked was the way the movie portrayed how many people are involved in the sex trade.  There are the "setters," the sellers, the buyers, the police.  It's a sophisticated chain, with some big players--and some big bucks--in the system.  The fact that this is a multibillion dollar business means that there is a LOT of demand, and it's coming from some of the wealthiest countries on earth.  Including our own.  I liked the fact that Liam Neeson doesn't stop with just the sellers running the ring, but also goes after those who are really behind it: the buyers.  

It's clear that to traffickers, innocent, beautiful human beings are reduced to dollar signs and business pawns.   How did we get to the point that this goes on every day, all over the world, with little to no retribution--and what are we going to do about it now?