His story intrigued me. I’m all for forgiveness and rehabilitation, but I also agree that the work of being a dentist cannot be separated from this man’s character. Hurting children isn’t acceptable; praising the work of those that harm children therefore isn’t acceptable. The person and the action must be judged together in order to protect others from harm. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing here that we should always be pointing fingers, refusing to forgive, or live in constant judgment of others. Life is messy; no one is perfect and all that. I’m all for mercy, but at the same time if people are being hurt it has to be stopped. This man is being held accountable for how he hurt children. I hope he can repent and change and find mercy, but to stop the harm he had to be held accountable. The public outrage at his actions will ensure that he is held accountable in ways that prevent him from doing further harm.

But in a world full of suffering and pain, I find it interesting that there are very few “sins” left anymore that can so completely discredit a person and force the community to hold them accountable for their actions. Sure we might think Charlie Sheen or Mel Gibson are crazy and need help, or shake our heads when we hear of yet another athlete or entertainer who beat up their girlfriend, or admit a pastor’s misogyny might be bit extreme even as we buy his books – but falling out of favor or assuming boys will be boys is not the same as holding people accountable so that they will stop hurting others.

What if businessmen when given achievement awards were held accountable for the abuses committed in their sweatshops they own or for the pollution they have created? Or if “sealing-the-deal” gifts of visits to brothels full of trafficked young women were listed alongside a company’s stocks? Would we be willing to hold those people accountable for hurting others in such ways? Would it affect our respect for the company or whether or not we used their product? We freak out and lynch the dentist caught with child porn or even the pastor who has an affair because such things are close to home, but we continue to give awards and our money to those that abuse workers and sex slaves. So, why the double standard? Isn’t hurting people the same thing no matter who does it or where it takes place?

I was asking myself these questions last week after this story hit the news and found an interesting response to my musings in the words of Newt Gingrich. As he announced his intention to run for president, news stations brought up his controversial quote about Obama where he said that Obama was conning the American people with his anti-colonial Kenyan mindset and was fundamentally out of touch with how the world works. I agreed in part with Gingrich’s assessment, but not for the reasons he intended. In his view a president has to follow the oppressive and colonial ways of the world in order to achieve power and dominance at any cost because that is just the way the world works. Politicians, businessmen, bankers – the power holders in our world today often operate under a different system than the rest of us. They are looked down upon as weak, out of touch, and con-artists if they seek the good of the whole and not just themselves. We assume that they will abuse the environment and their workers, we expect them to visit brothels and sex slaves, we expect them to colonize and destroy – and never have to take responsibility for any of it, even if caught. Some of us have glimmers of hope when we see people in those worlds attempting to subvert those expectations, but we rarely hold such people accountable for hurting others. In fact we reward them for doing so if they manage to benefit us while they are doing it.

It’s obvious that there are people out there who never take responsibility for the hurts they have caused in the world. But what about our responsibility to hold them accountable for their actions? Most of us don’t even want to admit that we contribute to the systems that cause harm, much less speak out in an attempt to put an end to the suffering of others. We are even unsettled and uncomfortable when we have to face the depravity of men like this dentist who now must take responsibility for the harm they caused children. But I think stories like these need to push us to ask these questions – ask why responsibility and accountability are assumed to just not be part of “the way the world works.” And then choose not to be afraid of actually finding answers.

Apparently in the American church, a star football player can say how he played all his games for Jesus and people respond with "awww, what a nice Christian boy." But say that you are working to put an end to human trafficking in the name of Jesus, and people wonder if you are really a Christian.

Then this morning I was at the gym watching the two TVs in front of me. On one was a story about a rich lady with a huge house who had started a rescue mission for disabled dogs. Each dog is given medical attention, a custom-made "wheelchair", and lots of love and attention so they can live out their days as happy dogs. On the other TV were images from Haiti. A father carrying his young daughter whose face had been partly smashed-in. It sickened me to think that those dogs were getting far more spent on them and far better medical attention than that young girl ever would. Those dogs get to live as happy dogs, while that girl if she survives, will be deformed for life. With a facial deformity, she cannot get education or find a job. If she manages to not be trafficked into slavery as maid/sextoy in a wealthier house (Haiti being one of the worst offenders for child slavery), her only options will be to beg or prostitute herself in order to survive. She will become the "scum and riff-raff" that gets condemned for making poor countries the corrupt and sinful places many Western Christians see them as. We might pity her for the few seconds she is on CNN and maybe even send enough food to feed her for a few days, but we'd rather build retirement homes for dogs than do the radical work to change the system that oppresses her. What is our problem?

And then there are the true scum like Rush Limbaugh or Pat Robertson who have pulled their typical jackass moves in the aftermath of this tragedy. Pat in your twisted rewriting of history you display perfectly the juxtaposition between what Jesus actually said and what you want him to have said. You want to blame tragedy on personal sins. You take an old Haitian MYTH and read it as fact to support your cause. Sure, the Haitians in order to explain all the shit that has happened to them have a myth saying that when the Spanish came to Hispaniola (the small island shared between the Dominican Republic and Haiti) they surrendered Haiti to the devil in order to dedicate the Dominican Republic to God. Maybe it helps deal with the pain of being a slave nation, that once they threw off the chains of slavery had the US lead a worldwide trade boycott of them and France force them to pay them pack for loss of slave revenue, and then who struggled to survive under that debt, and then were occupied by the US military in 1915 who slaughtered thousands of peasants, stripped their forests of valuable wood, and left the country barren, and who had to deal with the IMF and World Bank funding dictators who destroyed their country and left them with debt that was only forgiven a couple of months ago, and then another US occupation in 1994, and then with trade stipulations and tariff-free US goods that have destroyed their local economy. I would try to create a myth to explain away all that oppression too. But to twist it and say the Haitians deliberately sold themselves to Satan and are now being punished for their own sins (like emancipating themselves from slavery), just shows how out of touch you are with not only reality but with Jesus. When asked whose sin made a man blind, Jesus replied that no one had sinned but that this was a chance for him to be light to the world – to restore sight to the blind, to set the oppressed free. So get your history straight, or at least get Jesus straight and use this opportunity to be a light to the world instead of another harbinger of darkness.

But then I see the wonderful outpouring of aid to Haiti juxtaposed against the fact that most of it will never reach the actual people who need it most. The government in Haiti is so corrupt that most aid that is sent to the country gets funneled into special-interests groups. The privileged just keep getting richer while the poor in Haiti are making mud cookies because they can't afford food. So I want to just beg everyone to be careful where your money goes. Any relief that has to go through the Haitian government won't reach the people. So support organizations that are on the ground with the people in Haiti. We've partnered with New Life for Haiti before – a group that works to build schools and clinics in the Marfranc region of Haiti. They are seeking aid now to help rebuild homes that collapsed in the earthquake. Bread for the World has also created a list of trusted agencies working to help the people of Haiti. The system needs to be fixed. We can't put a bandaid on this wound and hopes it goes away. Unless we push for real change, more people will die, children will start being rounded-up and trafficked, starvation will slowly overtake the country, corporations will seize land from its rightful owners, and the 4,000 troops we are sending in will make Haiti a US occupied territory for the third time in a century. Haiti is the only country to successfully stage a slave-rebellion in the name of freedom. We need to help them be free – free from oppression, free from hunger, free from exploitation, and free from poverty.

My heart is breaking over Haiti. I see the state of Christianity in our country and I despair if with our shallow faith and judgmental hearts we can work for good in this world. But as messy and as hopeless as it all can seem, I realize I have no choice but to have hope.

If that pisses you off – it should. Don’t roll your eyes, or say it’s preposterous. Get over yourself and deal with it. Truth is truth even if it hurts.

So be aware. Be responsible. And help put an end to oppression.

Here are just a few really basic ways to get started fighting human trafficking and modern day slavery.

• Encourage lawmakers to stop punishing prostitutes and illegal immigrants. Most trafficked people in the US are afraid to speak up or escape because they fear the government – with good cause. They need to have the freedom to escape from bondage, and we need to be there to help restore them – not punish them.
• Stop buying/downloading porn. Statistically a majority of the people who read this site do. Stop encouraging a system that objectifies women and feeds the idea that they can just be used for men’s pleasure.
• Encourage feminism. Many of the girls sold into sex slavery are the unwanted girls of families in cultures that value males. Selling them is easier on the family than feeding an unwanted mouth. If women were seen as equals everywhere, less men would use them as mere objects.
• Buy only fairly traded clothing and food. Slavery exists in sweatshops and farms. Recently the U.S. government has rounded up slaves in New York clothing factories, Florida tomato farms, and among Katrina clean up crews in New Orleans. Tell companies with your dollars that you only support practices where employees are treated and paid fairly – and allowed to be a free human being.
• Support microloans and charity for education. Desperation and lack of education create the conditions for slavery to thrive. Those conditions must change if slavery is to end.

Or check out sites like What’s Your Response?, Or IJM, or Not for Sale, Or Stop the Traffick. Get informed and start working for change. The truth is if we aren’t doing crap about this – we are complicit in supporting slavery. Let’s follow Jesus and release the chains of oppression instead.

They also hit the (obvious) nail on the head in trying to explain why this happens.  Basically because the demand is there.  Trafficking isn’t just some evil crime committed by sociopaths, it’s done by corrupt and greed guys who know that there is a high demand for human flesh.  If the businessmen at conferences in Vegas weren’t looking for sex on demand then kidnapping, abusing, raping, and breaking women into submissive prostitutes wouldn’t be such a lucrative business.  But evil and injustice continue to exist because we demand it.  From cheap sex to cheap clothes or candy, we demand that others be oppressed for our benefit.

At one point in the CSI episode, the bad-guy of the week, a Russian pimp (played by the amazing Mark Sheppard), tried to justify why girls supposedly choose to be prostitutes.  He said, "inside, [all women] are whores. They will love to hear the things they want to believe – they are so beautiful, so fascinating, so special that they deserve the best of everything, the finest clothes, champagne, and jewels that money can buy.  And you know how you get the whore to emerge? Tell her there is an easy way to get all of this."  His words were ironic coming after the unfolding story of girls being kidnapped, drugged, raped, beaten, and murdered by traffickers.  Instead of describing the girls, they more accurately described the traffickers and the johns.  But they also describe all of us who have found easy ways to get whatever we want even if it is at the expense of others.  We will sell our souls because we believe we deserve the best of everything.

The sad thing is, there are no CSI’s out there working to put us behind bars so that the oppression stops.  We are not going to be punished for benefiting from crimes like human trafficking and slave labor.  And we wont be rewarded either for choosing to step outside of systems of oppression.  There is no carrot or stick when it comes to making a deliberate choice to love others.  We just have to decide that we care enough for someone else’s daughter or son to stop demanding that they be oppressed so that we can have everything we desire.

That said, I am a bit disturbed as to why this case has captured the media's (and my) attention and outrage. It is of course horrific, but it is hardly unique. Thousands of girls around the world face similar terrors every day. Children are kidnapped off the streets in Africa, drugged on trains in India, or sold by uncles in Cambodia and end up as captive sex slaves in brothels around the world – including in the USA. At the Not for Sale site you can read the story of Srey Neang – a young girl sold to a Karaoke bar owner who repeatedly raped her and forced her to service up to ten men a day. Once when the police raided the club, this 15 year old's "rescuers" charged her with prostitution and but her in jail until her owner bought her back. At the Polaris Project site one can hear the story of Katya, a 20-year-old Ukrainian girl who thought she had landed a waitressing job in America. But instead she found herself in captivity in Detroit forced to work in a strip club and locked into a tiny apartment with other women. Fear of getting caught as an illegal immigrant and imprisoned as a prostitute bought their silence.

Theirs is a story common to thousands of women and children, but those stories don't make the 24/7 news channels. Maybe it's because they aren't cute little white girls from middle class families. Maybe because Jaycee seems so "girl next door" and these other women seem worlds away. I have a feeling the guys visiting the massage parlours or the bachelor parties at the strip clubs don't see the girls there (often trafficked slaves) as sentimentally as the nation does Jaycee. But shouldn't we be just as outraged at the captivity and rape of each of these girls as we are about Jaycee Dugard? I think we are right to be outraged and disgusted by what was done to her, but I don't want that anger to simmer down just because she is now safe. There are girls all over the world, many of them in our local U.S. neighborhoods that are still living that day to day terror. They need rescue too.

So I hope this news coverage of Jaycee Dugard is not just the next sensational story to capture our attention after the death of Michael Jackson. I hope it is a wake-up call for Americans that there are girls being treated as chattel in our very midst. They may not all be cute white girls kidnapped from bus stops, but they are all someone's daughter and children of God. Their rape, captivity, and exploitation should be pissing us off and causing us to do whatever we can to restore their lives too.

While I think its fantastic that the local paper is getting the word out about how people can work to help stop human trafficking, the responses to the article were a sobering wake-up call. Yes, maybe I am just naive, but I want to believe that ordinary people have the capacity to be good. That they are capable of compassion and of living out the call to love our neighbor. Instead the majority of responses to this article merely revealed that hatred and prejudice run deep. (and yes, I know that people who leave responses to newspaper articles are generally the freaks on the extremes – but they are still saying out loud what generally only gets said in the privacy of people's homes – the sentiments are real). In this case the hated took the form of the attitude "screw the victims, it's their own fault anyway. what's in it for me?" Here's a brief sampling of these sorts of responses -

"Very commendable effort in an attempt to stop human trafficing.However,the unlining cause of this slavery is illegal immigration.Stop the illegals from entering our land and this crime will almost disappear.I am addressing this to not only illegal mexicans,but also to other Hispanics countries,Asian,European and Africans. White,black,brown,yellow,red,race does not matter.As mentioned below and we have seen examples of this trafficing on tv,the main hold that slavers have on these poor souls is thier fear of arrest and deportation.However,we need to bear in mind that these immigrants make their own decision to enter our country illegally and to break our laws. They must also realize that there is a correct and legal available to them if the wish to enter. If not,then they create their own hell…"

"uh….let's see….do i wanna quit selling people at 30k per person or do i wanna feel really good about myself and NOT do it because of this coaster…hmmmm…30k vs. nothing….hmmm…"

"How about a spay and neuter program for our illegal immigrant visitors?"

Ugh. So let's pretend for just a moment that human trafficking can be reduced to only the cases where people willingly immigrate illegally and then get tricked into slavery. Do these responders honestly support SLAVERY as punishment for those who seek a better life? That we should do nothing to help them because they created this situation for themselves? Do people cease to be people when they make the decision to immigrate illegally? I can understand, if not always agree, with the arguments against illegal immigration. But this tendency to treat immigrants as less-than-human and as people undeserving of justice and compassion is disgusting. None of us messed-up, fallen, finite human being are deserving of God's love and mercy and Jesus' ultimate sacrifice, but because we are all God's children created in his image, God loves us anyway. This self-righteous hubris that has people asserting that they know better than God who should and shouldn't be loved is truly a depressing reminder that most people aren't basically good.

But enough pretending. While traffickers do regularly take advantage of those vulnerable enough that they would even consider illegal immigration to begin with, many trafficking victims have no choice in the matter. They are told that they are being hired for a job in their country and after being drugged find themselves in a completely different country. With no papers, of course they fear being punished as illegal immigrants (especially after they are fed nothing but lies by their captures regarding the punishment of such immigrants). And why shouldn't they fear when there are American citizens calling for a "spay and neuter" program for them? When people are seen as less than dogs to be used and abused for our personal gain, justice will never happen. Until even Joe Prejudice can get over his hatred and learn to love his neighbor, we will still see atrocities like this occur.

Fighting human trafficking is a huge and daunting task. But reading stuff like this makes me realize that the task is far larger than simply defeating the traffickers. It involves teaching the average guy on the street how to get over himself and his self-centered attitude and learn how to love others and in humility consider others better than themselves. You know, only the message that got Jesus killed and which the church has failed to do for 2000 years. Nothing difficult there.

So who's with me?