Faith-Based Responses to Trafficking in Women from Eastern Europe

Маrk R. Elliott

Маrk R. ELLIOTT, South Carolina, USA

Introduction

On 7 September 2004, Secretary of State Colin Powell presided over the swearing-in ceremony of John R. Miller as Ambassador-at-Large of the State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. Before an assemblage of ambassadors, members of Congress, and White House and State Department VIPs, Ambassador Miller related the nightmare of Katya, "a Czech teenager lured to Amsterdam with a promise of a restaurant job, her passport seized, her two-year-old daughter threatened so she would service 10 and 15 men a day in a brothel." On 23 November 2004 Moldovan television reported the case of a family of traffickers in the northern Moldovan village of Vulkaneshty who had purchased girls from Ukrainian orphanages, along with all their paperwork, and dispatched them to work in East European countries as prostitutes and beggars.1 Could this possibly happen today in a civilized Europe? Or in the U.S.? The awful truth is that such cases are all too commonplace.

The Globalization of Trafficking

Much-lauded economic globalization has opened doors not only to growth in sanctioned trade, but to burgeoning illicit commerce as well. Trafficking in women is widely reported to be the third most lucrative branch of organized crime, after international sales in contraband weapons

1 Ambassador John R. Miller, "Remarks at Swearing-in Ceremony," U.S. State Department, 7 September 2004.

Dr. Mark Elliott earned a bachelor of arts degree in 1969 from Asbury College and a master of arts (1971) and doctoral degree (1974) from the University of Kentucky. For many years he has served as editor of the award-winning East-West Church & Ministry Report, a clearinghouse for information concerning the status of Christianity and evangelical ministries in the former Soviet Union and East Central Europe. He is the author of scores of articles, books, and reviews, including the highly esteemed Pawns of Yalta. Dr. Elliott is Professor of History and Coordinator of Studies is History at Southern Wes-leyan University, Central, South Carolina.

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and drugs.2 This growth has been fueled by a seemingly limitless supply of economically desperate women, the lure of extraordinary profits earned by traffickers, pimps, and organized crime, and the low risk of arrest and punishment. Also in Europe, the collapse of Communist regimes in the East has led to wholesale recruiting of Slavic women for East and West European, Middle Eastern, and even U.S. brothels.

Asia, historically, has been the major source for global trafficking of women, as well as the locus of international sex tourism. But the liberation of East European states from Communist rule in 1989 and the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to the addition of another major stream of trafficking victims. Millions of destitute women from these regions have been led away in new chains fashioned

2 U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report (Washington, DC: Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, 2004) 6; Elizabeth Kelly, "Journeys of Jeopardy: A Review of Research on Trafficking in Women and Children in Europe," International Organization for Migration (IOM) Research Series (November 2002), 19; E-mail from Oleg Turlac to author, 24 November 2004.

3 Francis T. Miko, "Trafficking in Women and Children: The U.S. and International Response," Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 26 March 2004, 1; Donna M. Hughes and Tatyana A. Denisova, "The Transnational Political Criminal Nexus of Trafficking in Women from Ukraine," Trends in Organized Crime 6 (Spring-Summer 2001), 9; LaStrada Foundation Against Trafficking in Women-Poland (http:// free.ngo.pl/lastrada/pagel/html), 15 September 2004; International Organization for Migration, "Trafficking and Prostitution: The Growing Exploitation of Migrant Women from Central and Eastern Europe," May 1995, http://www. globalmarch.org/child-trafficking/virtual-li-brary/traff_women_eng.htm, p. 4.

by Russian and East European organized crime rings, traffickers and pimps, and brothel operators worldwide.3

The Numbers

Estimates for global trafficking in women range from 600,000 to four million per year, with the higher figures including persons trafficked within, as well as across, national borders.4 The United Nations and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent each calculate four million women trafficked annually within and across borders.5 Dr. Laura Lederer, a State Department senior advisor on trafficking, believes that the many millions of women victimized by the global sex industry now places this modern-day slavery "on par with estimates of the number of Africans enslaved in the 16th and 17th centuries."6

4 .6 to .8 million men, women, and children across borders: State, Trafficking, 2004, 6;. .7 to 4 million: Dina Francesa Haynes, "Used, Abused, Arrested and Deported: Extending Immigration Benefits to Protect the Victims of Trafficking and to Secure the Prosecution of Traffickers," Human Rights Quarterly 26 (2004), 227; .8 to .9 million: Christopher Smith, "Trafficking in Women," Helsinki Commission News, 2 March 2004, http://www.csce.gov; .7 million across borders/1 to 2 million overall: "Sexual Trafficking on the Rise," Christian Century 117 (2 September 2004), 449; .7 to 2 million: State, Trafficking, 2003, 1; .8 to .9 million: Miko, "Trafficking," 1; 1million: Hughes and Denisova, "Transnational," 9; Allen Hertzke, Freeing God's Children; The Unlikely Alliance for Global Human Rights (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), 317.

5 Joanna Apap, Peter Cullen, and Felicita Medved, "Counteracting Human Trafficking: Protecting the Victims of Trafficking"; Salvation Army International Conference of Leaders, Hamilton Park, NY, 29 April-7 May 2004.

6 Salvation Army Conference, 29 April-7 May 2004.

Conservative estimates for the number of women and children from postSoviet states subjected to international trafficking range from 175,000 to 250,000 per year.7 An impoverished post-Soviet Ukraine appears to be the greatest loser with 400,000 or more of its women having been trafficked abroad in its first decade of indepen-dence.8 The Moldovan Security Service calculates that of the more than 600,000 of its citizens working abroad illegally, a great many are trafficked women. Prosecutors contend some ten percent of all Moldovan women working in brothels abroad were drugged by traffickers. In some villages "75 percent of the women are working abroad."9 Both Moscow's anti-trafficking Angel Coalition and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimate Russia's loss to traffickers to be 50,000 women a year.10 A Miramed Institute sur-

vey of Russia "indicated that in some economically depressed regions, 30 percent of people had a close friend or family member who had been lured abroad." Especially hard hit were Yaroslavl, Novgorod, Karelia, and Buryatia.11 In May 2004, IOM estimated "50,000 to 100,000 Moldovans, over 100,000 Ukrainians, and 500,000 Russians [currently] active in prostitution outside their home coun-try."12 So many Slavic women have been ensnared in the global sex industry that in many parts of the world, including Turkey, Israel, and England, "Natasha" has become the generic term for prostitute. 13 At the same time Caucasus and post-Soviet Central Asian republics also pay tribute to the trafficking behemoth in dimensions that, to date, are only partially documented. (Losers include Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakh-stan.)14 One anti-trafficking NGO

7 175,000: Victor Malarek, The Natashas: The New Global Sex Trade (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2003), 10-11; Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, "Trafficking in Human Beings: Implications for the OSCE," Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights Background Paper, September 1999, http:// www.osce.org/documents/odihr/1999/09/ 1503_en.html; 200,000: Heikki Mattila, "Combating Human Trafficking," INTERSEC Journal of International Security 14 (February 2004); 250,000: "Sexual Trafficking," Christian Century , 449. A 2004 USAID-funded report cites a Swedish NGO's estimate of 500,000 trafficked persons in Europe annually, which includes men and boys and calculates that the majority of trafficked persons are from the former Soviet Union.

8 400,000: Ukrainian Ministry of Interior estimate cited in Kelly, "Journey," 19; 420,000: LaStrada, 1999 estimate cited in Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, "Trafficking in Women: Moldova and Ukraine," December 2000.

9 Minnesota, "Trafficking," 15-16.

10 "Bill Makes Human Trafficking a Crime," Moscow Times, 19 February 2003; "Who Are the Victims of the Sex Trade?," Pravda.ru, 5 August 2004, http://english.pravda.ru/mail/18/ 90/360/11107_traffic.html.

11 Sergei Blagov, "Thousands of Women Sold Abroad Every Year," Interservice Press, 26 December 2002, http://www.humantrafficking. com/client/view.aspx?ResourceID=310.

12 Angel Coalition, "Trafficking from Russia and the CIS" (http://www.angelcoalition.org/ trafficking.html), 8 May 2004.

13 Leyla Gblctr and Pinar Ilkkaracan, "The 'Natasha' Experience: Migrant Sex Workers from the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in Turkey," Women's Studies International Forum 45 (no. 4, 2002), 414, 416; Hughes and Denisova, "Transnational," 10; Malarek, Natashas, xvi.

14 Angel Coalition, "Trafficking from Russia"; Malarek, Natashas, 226; International Organization for Migration, Trafficking in Women and Children from the Republic of Armenia: A Study, September, 2001, http://www.iom.int://DOCU-

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estimates that citizens of post-Soviet states now constitute one quarter of all women subjected to trafficking worldwide.15

Traffickers transport women from post-Soviet states to brothels and apartment lock-ups in Europe, the Middle East, even the Far East and the U.S.16

• An estimated 500,000 women are trafficked to Europe annually,17 with up to 75 percent coming from former East Bloc states.18

• Of the 400,000 women in prostitution in Germany, 80 percent are from Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Eighty percent of women in London's sex trade industry also come from former Soviet Bloc states.19

• Most of the estimated 20,000 foreign women in prostitution in Greece are from former Soviet Bloc states.20

In the Balkans, especially in largely lawless places like Bosnia and Kosovo, approximately 100,000 women from the former Soviet Union and 75,000 from other parts of Eastern Europe service some locals and many "peacekeeping" troops.21

Albanian traffickers have smuggled thousands of women from Kosovo into Italy by boat for prostitution. 22

Eighty percent of the women one Dutch anti-trafficking NGO assists are from former Communist Bloc countries.23

The Russian mafia controls much of Israel's sex trade with up to 90 percent of trafficked women coming from Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.24 "Police officials estimate that there are 25,000 paid sexual transactions [in Israel] every day."25

Women from former Soviet Bloc nations also work in brothels in Thai-

MENTS/PUBLICATION/EN/Armenia_traff_ report.pdf, pp. 11, 15; E-mail from Ruth Poj-man, USAID, 23 November 2004.

15 LaStrada Foundation, http://free.ngo.pl/las-trada, p. 2; Malarek, Natashas, 6.

16 Miko, "Trafficking in Women," n.p.; "The Trafficking of NIS Women Abroad; An International Conference in Moscow 3-5 November 1997 Conference Report," International League for Human Rights, http://www.ilhr.org/ilhr/re-ports/traffic/index.html, pp. 8-10, 27; Malarek, Natashas, 3.

17 State, Trafficking, 2004, 15; Michael Specter, "Traffickers' New Cargo: Nanve Slavic Women," New York Times, 11 January 1998, 1.

18 "Trafficking of Women: GOs and NGOs," 9.

19 Donna Hughes, "The 2002 Trafficking in Persons Report: Lost Opportunity for Progress; Foreign Government Complicity in Human Trafficking: A Review of the State Department's 2002 Trafficking in Persons Report," House Committee on International Relations, 19 June 2002, 5.

20 Malarek, Natashas, 140.

21 Guglielmo Schinina, ed., Psychological Support to Groups of Victims of Human Trafficking in Transit Situations. Psychosocial Notebook (http://www.iom.int), February 2004, 59.

22 Miko, "Trafficking in Women," n.p.; Malarek, Natashas, 106-10.

23 "Trafficking of NIS Women," 45. See also International Organization for Migration, "Trafficking and Prostitution: The Growing Exploitation of Migrant Women from Central and Eastern Europe," 1995, http://www.globalmarch.org/ child-trafficking/virtual-library/ traff_women_eng.htm, p. 12.

24 Walter Zalisko, Russian Organized Crime, Trafficking in Women, and Government's Response (Clarksburg, NJ: PMC International, 2003), 2. Available at http://www.monmouth.com/~wplz/ Index.1.htm.

25 Specter, "Traffickers' New Cargo," 2. See also Amnesty International, "Human Rights Abuses of Women Trafficked from the Commonwealth of Independent States into Israel's Sex Industry," cited in Malarek, Natashas, 195.

land, Japan, and South Korea on "entertainer" visas.26 In 1995 Global Survival Network (GSN), co-directed by Gillian Caldwell, discovered that a group trading Siberian tiger pelts was also trafficking Russian women to Japan. GSN went undercover to document the intricacies of the business, including the delivery of Russian women and girls not only to Japan, but to Macau, Germany, Switzerland, and the Untied Sates. GSN's clandestine videotaping of global trafficking from the inside forms the basis for its documentary film, Bought and Sold?1

• Anywhere from 14,500 to 50,000 women are trafficked into the United States annually, 28 including from Eastern Europe, often via Mexico. As an example, the Kyiv Post reported

the case of a Ukrainian woman working in prostitution in a Silver Spring, Maryland, massage parlor owned by a Russian.29

The Profits

The modern slave trade has become an extremely lucrative business for organized crime, with estimates ranging from six to nineteen billion dollars annual profit.30 The Angel Coalition estimates sex trafficking just in Russia yields seven billion in annual profits.31 And in Germany alone bars, clubs, and brothels dependent on traffickers are estimated to earn 4.5 billion a year.32

The income of individual traffickers and pimps is stunning.

26 Malarek, Natashas, 226. See also Specter, "Traffickers' New Cargo," 1; "Trafficking of NIS Women," 35; The Factbook on Global Exploitation: Eastern Europe, 23 February 2004, http:// www.catwinternational.org/fb/EUeast.html. In 2004 a U.S. House Armed Services Committee/ Helsinki Commission hearing highlighted the demand generated by military bases abroad. Recently the Pentagon adopted a "zero tolerance" policy for U.S. troops frequenting brothels. E-mail from Eleanor Nagy to author, 9 November 2004.

27 "Trafficking of NIS Women," 8, 42-43.

28 "President George W. Bush Delivers Keynote Address at First National Human Trafficking Conference," U.S. Department of State Anti-Traf-ficking News Bulletin 1 (July 2004), 3; Miko, "Trafficking in Women," n.p.; "Of Human Bondage," National Review, 11 March 2002, http:// www.humantrafficking.com/humantrafficking/ client/view.aspx?ResourceID=2115; Christine Dolan, "Terrorism and Trafficking: Finding the Nexus" (http://www.iast.net/ reports.htm); Lisa Thompson, "Trafficking," 24 February 2004, http://www.1800salarmy.org. See also Zalisko, Russian Organized Crime, 5; Nancy Frazier O'Brien, "Conference Aims to Make Face of Human Trafficking More Visible," Catholic News Service, 22 October 2004, http://

www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/ 0405744.htm; Peter Landesman, "The Girls Next Door," New York Times Magazine, 25 January 2004, 32. Journalist Peter Landesman believes published estimates are too low and that the actual number of women trafficked into the U.S. annually "is probably in the six figures." "Fresh Air," National Public Radio interview, 26 January 2004.

29 Hughes and Denisova, "Transnational," 13; Donna M. Hughes, "The 'Natasha' Trade: The Transnational Shadow Market of Trafficking in Women," Journal of International Affairs 53 (Spring 2000), 640.

30 Estimates range from six to nineteen billion. Six billion: Zalisko, Russian Organized Crime, 1; seven billion: Hughes and Denisova, "Transnational," 9; "Who Are Victims," Pravda,ru, 5 August 2004; 9.5 billion: State, Trafficking, 2004, 14; seven to ten billion: Miko, "Trafficking in Women," n.p.; seven to nineteen billion: Christine Dolan, "A Shattered Innocence: The Millennium Holocaust," A Report to the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, April 2001, 10; ten billion: Salvation Army Conference, 29 April-7 May 2004.

31 "Bill," Moscow Times, 19 February 2003.

32 Malarek, Natashas, 203.

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• The CIA calculates that profits from one trafficked woman alone average $250,000.33A Ukrainian doctor operating a brothel in Essex, England, earned $210,000 in eight months prior to her arrest.34

• In Bosnia, with an average annual income of $4,400, a single bar owner working five East European women can earn $240,000 a year from prostitution.35

• Yitzhak Tyler, chief of undercover police operations in Haifa, Israel, has tallied pimps' profits from mostly Slavic women: "a small place with 10 girls" times "15 to 20 clients a day," times 200 shekels, equals 30,000 shekels a day, times "25 days a month minimum ... So we are talking about 750,000 shekels a month or about $215,000. A man often owns five of these places. That's a million dollars [a month]. No taxes. No real overhead. It's a factory with slave labor. And we've got them all over Israel."36

Not only are trafficking profits sky high, but overhead is negligible. Women from Eastern Europe cost pimps $500 to $1,000 each but, unlike drugs, they can be sold over and over again.37 And when they die from maltreatment or sexually transmitted

33 Haynes, "Used, Abused," 22.

34 Hughes and Denisova, "Transnational," 13.

35 Kristin Wiebe, "Human Trafficking in Macedonia," Institute for Sustainable Communities, December 2002.

36 Specter, "Traffickers' New Cargo," 5.

37 Ibid., 2, 5; Hughes and Denisova, "Transna-

tional," 6; Donna M. Hughes, "Sex Trafficking

as a Threat to the Security of the Russian Fed-

eration," Position Paper of the Angel Coalition,

8 October 1999.

diseases or commit suicide, or are caught in police raids, pimps—who are rarely arrested—have access to a seemingly inexhaustible supply of additional desperate women and girls from Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, Nigeria, Thailand, etc., etc.

The Low Risk

Not only is trafficking a high profit, low overhead proposition, it is very low risk as well. "Sadly, in most countries there's a greater penalty for dealing drugs than for dealing in human flesh."38 In the Netherlands and Belgium, the maximum penalty for trafficking is one year and in the Czech Republic it is a misdemeanor.39 Arrests and prosecutions of traffickers are infinitesimal compared to the millions of women being traded and the billions being earned every year.

Corruption

Rampant corruption only compounds the problem. Trafficked women fleeing brothels rarely seek help from the law because the police are too often the johns—or are on the take—or both.40

• Macedonian police reportedly earn $750 every time they assist a trafficker, compared to a monthly salary of $200.41

38 Jane Johnson Struck, "Agent of Change; Why Former U.S. Congresswoman Linda Smith is Compelled to Combat Sexual Slavery—One Young Woman's Life at a Time," Today's Christian Woman (January-February 2004), 33. See also Miko, "Trafficking in Women," n.p.

39 IOM, "Trafficking and Prostitution," 1995, 11.

40 Wiebe, "Human Trafficking," 23; Malarek, Natashas, 135-56; Skrobanek, "Trafficking of Women," 28.

41 Wiebe, "Human Trafficking," 11.

• The chief of criminal investigations for the Ukrainian Ministry of the Interior sees trafficking as a "human tragedy" and a "national crisis" compounded by wealthy criminals bribing impoverished police: "Gangsters make more money from these women in a week than we have in our law enforcement budget for the whole year."42

• Of 70 travel agencies in Moldova, an estimated 50 are thought to be fronts for traffickers.43

• Pimps in Western Europe and Israel, "working with officials, tip off police on the whereabouts of a woman just about the time that woman has earned enough money to leave, resulting in the woman being arrested and deported and the pimps keeping the money."44

Christian Responses

What has been and what should be the Christian response to trafficking in women? Having surveyed voluminous literature on trafficking and having conducted several dozen interviews, I can answer that Christian responses, though spotty and uneven, have been far more numerous and consequential than I originally realized. However, at the same time, it must be noted that Christian responses have not been nearly enough to help more than a negligible percentage of trafficked women and, to date, have been dwarfed by the research and work of non-faith-based NGOs and government agencies. And all

anti-trafficking efforts to this point pale before the continuing escalation of the global sex trade.

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U. S. Legislation

Before exploring what more Christians could and should do to combat trafficking, a review of Christian efforts to date is in order. In the United States in the 1980s mainline and evangelical Christians and feminist organizations managed to find common cause in combating pornography. Evangelicals also gained experience in working collaboratively as they lobbied successfully for passage of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. The expertise in coalition building and networking that U.S. Christians gained in anti-pornography and religious liberty campaigns proved immensely helpful as U.S. faith communities began to wake up to the staggering dimensions and horrific depravity of worldwide sexual trafficking in women. 45

Christian Networking

Landmark U.S. legislation to combat international trafficking in women, passed in 2000 and strengthened in 2003, owed much to concerned Christians inside and outside government and their willingness to work together with equally concerned Jewish groups and feminist organizations. Michael Horowitz of the Hudson Institute prodded both evangelical Christians

42 Hughes and Denisova, "Transnational," 13; Specter, "Traffickers' New Cargo," 4.

43 Minnesota, "Trafficking in Women," 23.

44 Hughes and Denisova, "Transnational," 12..

45 Hertzke, Freeing God's Children, [21]; David Neff, "Operation Human Rights," Christianity Today 48 (October 2004), 106-07.

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and feminists to get involved. The informal anti-trafficking coalition he helped forge in the mid-1990s, including John Busby (Salvation Army), Joe Mettimano (World Vision), Lisa Thompson (NAE, later, Salvation Army), Barbara Ledeen (Senate Republican Conference), Claudia Barlow (private consultant), Penny Lance (Kids First Coalition), Marian Bell (Prison Fellowship), and Janice Crouse (Concerned Women for America), continues to press its case.

At the same time, two Catholic laymen in Congress, Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS), worked in tandem leading efforts to pass the 2000 and 2003 legislation that commits the U.S. to a major role in combating what amounts to a modern-day slave trade. Political scientist Allen Hertz-ke has written a fascinating account of truly "strange bedfellows" coming together to promote congressional action against trafficking: "At a pivotal last stage of the legislative campaign, members of Congress received a letter from Gloria Steinem and other feminist leaders at the very moment that they were being lobbied by such figures as Charles Colson of Prison Fellowship, Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals, and John Busby of the Salvation Army."46 Among a

host of Christian groups that played a role in supporting U.S. anti-traf-ficking legislation, especially prominent were the National Association of Evangelicals (Richard Cizik and Lisa Thompson), Concerned Women for America (Janice Crouse), the Salvation Army (John Busby and Marilyn White), the International Justice Mission (Gary

Haugen and Sharon Cohn), the Institute on Religion and Democracy (Diane Knippers), the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (Richard Land and Shannon Royce), World Vision (Joe Mettimano), and Prison Fellowship (Chuck Colson and Marian Bell).47

Christian networking to combat trafficking is having a significant impact. The U.S.-based National Association of Evangelicals, for example, helped launch an Initiative Against Sexual Trafficking (IAST) in 1999 that in 2001 came under the auspices of the Salvation Army. This grouping of 28 church and parachurch organizations supporting anti-traf-ficking efforts is led by Lisa Thompson. She is a tireless, energetic, single-minded crusader who has been inspired by the nineteenth-century anti-slavery campaign of William Wilberforce and the compassionate ministries to prostitutes undertaken in England by Josephine Butler and Bramwell and Florence Booth.48

46 Hertzke, Freeing God's Children, 330; e-mail from Janice Crouse to author, 28 October 2004.

47 Hertzke, Freeing God's Children, Chapter Six;

Neff, "Operation," 106-07; interviews: Barrett Duke, SBC, 18 August 2004; Lisa Thompson, Salvation Army, 18 August 2004. See also Gary A.

Haugen, Good News About Injustice (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999). 48 Jane Jordan, Josephine Butler (London: John Murray, 2001); "What Is the Initiative Against Sexual Trafficking?" (http://www.iast.net), 24 February 2004.

Anti-Trafficking Public Letters

Increasing evangelical involvement in an issue of international social justice is no better illustrated than in a string of anti-trafficking public letters with multiple signatures. These have been generated by such activists as Lisa Thompson and Janice Crouse with help from such friends of evangelicals as Michael Horowitz (Hudson Institute) and Donna Hughes (University of Rhode Island). These widely circulated letters seek to put pressure on politicians to use their influence to combat this evil. Examples include open letters to President Bill Clinton and congressional leaders to support U.S. anti-trafficking legislation (June 1999— 130, mostly Evangelical, signatories); to Secretary of State Powell urging the removal of the Netherlands and Germany from the State Department's Tier One status as countries successfully combating trafficking (April 2002—over 100 U.S. Christian and human rights organization signatories); to President Vladimir Putin opposing Russian legalization of prostitution (September 2002—185 signatories); to Pope John Paul II urging greater Vatican efforts to combat trafficking (January 2003—

146 signatories); to Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice urging President Bush's participation in a high profile swearing-in for Ambassador John R. Miller, responsible for State Department counter trafficking efforts (December 2003—19 signatories); to President Vaclav Klaus and other Czech officials opposing the legalization of prostitution (May 2004—105 signatories); and to U.S. House and Senate leaders to preserve $50 million in U.S. government funding for anti-trafficking efforts (November 2004—29 organizations).49

The Salvation Army

The premier Protestant denominational response to trafficking to date is seen in the concerted efforts of the Salvation Army. The work of Lisa Thompson on behalf of the Salvation Army and IAST is just the latest chapter in longstanding Salvation Army efforts to attack the evil of trafficking. In 1884 followers of founder William Booth opened a safe house for women and girls escaping prostitution, and in 1885 the Army collaborated with journalist W. T. Stead in a campaign to end child prostitution in England.50

49 Malarek, Natashas, 202; Protection Project, 16 June 1999, http://

www.protectionproject.org/vt/tpc.htm; "Prostitution in Russia—Does the U.S. State Department Back the Legalization of Prostitution?," 21 November 2002, http://www. humantrafficking.com/humantrafficking/cli-ent/view.aspx?ResourceID=1300; letter to Colin Powell, 29 April 2002, http:// www.macom.org.il/todaa-colinpowell.asp; letter to Vladimir Putin, 23 September 2002; letter to

John Paul II, 10 January 2003; letter to Colin Powell, 23 December 2003; interview with Lisa Thompson, 18 August 2004; interview with Barrett Duke, 18 August 2004; interview with Janice Crouse, 19 August 2004; Donna Hughes, "Dignity" anti-trafficking listserv, 18 November 2004.

50 Lisa L. Thompson, "A Christian Perspective on Sexual Trafficking," presentation at a conference on "The Human Rights Challenge of Globalization in Asia-Pacific-US: Trafficking in

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On 11 July 1885 William Booth railed against sexual trafficking in the Army's War Cry: "Something must be done and somebody must do it. Thank God the Salvation Army never sees an evil without asking the question, 'Can anything be done to remove it?'"51 Before the end of the year Parliament was sufficiently prodded by a Salvation Army petition drive and an aroused public to pass the Criminal Amendment Law, raising the legal age of consent from 13 to 16. Josephine Butler, famed stalwart crusader against British laws that aided and abetted pimps and child predators, saw the Salvation Army as her "answer to prayer."52 Meanwhile, in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Salvation Army, the National Florence Crittendon Mission, and other evangelical groups took up the cause of ministering to sexually exploited

women.53

As noted earlier, the Salvation Army was a charter member of the Initiative Against Sexual Trafficking (IAST), launched in 1999 by the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). In 2001, at a point when the NAE was no longer able to sustain the Initiative financially, Commissioner

Persons, Especially Women and Children," Honolulu, Hawaii, 14 November 2002; "Trafficking is a Nightmare," War Cry, 10 August 2002, http://www.salvationarmy.org.uk/en/Li-brary/publications/warCry/2 002/08-10/ 2002.08.10warcry_10-08-2002_p3.xml.htm.

51 Lisa L. Thompson, "Soylent Green is People: Cannibalism of the World's Women and Children through Sexual Trafficking and Prostitution," 3 September 2004; Salvation Army Conference, 29 Arpil-7 May 2004.

52 Salvation Army Conference, 29 April-7 May 2004.

John Busby, U.S. national commander of the Salvation Army, arranged for it to be housed at the Army's Alexandria, VA, headquarters. IAST combats trafficking by means of public awareness and advocacy campaigns, educational work, and social services for victims. This same comprehensive approach marks the work of the Salvation Army worldwide. In August 2003 The U.S. Salvation Army established a Trafficking Services Council (TSC) headed by Adam Freer.54 Also in 2003, General John Larrson in London set up an International Headquarters Anti-Trafficking Desk. Lt. Col. Dawn Sewell, who manages this effort, was also directed to oversee a new International Anti-Traffick-ing Task Force set up in January 2004, consisting of fifteen Salvation Army officers representing the Army's anti-trafficking efforts on every continent.55

The Salvation Army is not only organized to act; it does act. Through its leading role in the IAST coalition, the Army has been involved not only in lobbying for laws combating trafficking but in awareness-raising campaigns through forums, lectures, and open letters.56 Also, around the world the Salvation Army works with

53 Thompson, "Christian Perspective."

54 U.S. Salvation Army, Good News, January 2004.

55 Salvation Army Conference, 29 April-7 May 2004; Thompson, "Soylent Green;" Lt. Col. Dawn Sewell, "The Challenge of Combatting Human Trafficking, Focusing Upon Sexual Exploitation," Salvation Army Conference, 29 April-7 May 2004.

56 Wendy Murray Zoba, "The Hidden Slavery," Christianity Today 47 (November 2003), 72; "The Army's History of Fighting Sexual Trafficking," 2004, http: / / wwwl. salvationarmy.org/ihq/ www_sa.nsf.

trafficked women, including in India, Tanzania, Switzerland, Australia, South Africa, Canada, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, The Netherlands, Britain, Ghana, Costa Rica, and Bangladesh. It also establishes micro-enterprise and micro-credit projects to alleviate the poverty that breeds trafficking and to provide victims of trafficking with an alternative livelihood. Its work in Jessore, Bangladesh, for example, has liberated ninety-eight women from prostitution since 1997. The Army provides literacy classes and training while its Sally Ann Shop sells crafts and clothes made by the women. Others are extended small loans to launch businesses: "One woman now owns four rickshaws and has a daily income from their hire. Another has bought carpentry tools for furniture making and yet another has bought and sold cattle... and there is a good repayment record."57

European Protestant Efforts

In Europe, the Churches' Commission for Migrants in Europe (CCME) has repeatedly denounced trafficking as "an unacceptable new form of sla-very."58 In Germany, the Lutheran, Reformed, and United Churches staff some twenty counseling centers for victims of trafficking, helping wom-

en cope with trauma and assisting them in finding food and shelter.59 A quite recent Protestant initiative is that of the European Baptist Federation which, urged on by concerned Swedish Baptists, will make counter-trafficking efforts the focus of an upcoming meeting scheduled for April 2005 in Budapest.60

European Catholic and Ecumenical Efforts

Catholic bodies have been particularly active in Europe publicizing the plight of trafficked women and taking steps to provide protection and care for women leaving prostitution. The international Catholic charity, Caritas, organizes prevention campaigns, operates safe houses, and assists in the repatriation of trafficked women. In addition, it helped launch Catholic Organizations Against Trafficking in Women (COATNET), which in turn in December 2002 helped spawn a broader coalition including non-Catholics: Christian Action and Networking Against Trafficking in Women (CAT). In 2003 Caritas also prepared an information and workshop kit on "Trafficking in Women and Children."61

In 2003 CAT published Christian Action and Networking Against Traf-

57 Salvation Army Conference, 29 April-7 May 2004.

58 "Europeans Warned on Female Trafficking," Christian Century 121 (27 January 2004), 18. CCME receives funding from the World Council of Churches and the European Commission.

59 "Female Victims of Trafficking: A Challenge

for the Church and Social Welfare Work,"

February 2004, EKD Bulletin http://www.ekd.de/ bulletin/bulletin_bulletin2_2004_12.html.

60 Phone interview with Lauran Bethell, 26 August 2004.

61 "Trafficking in Women is Targeted by Christian Aid Groups: European Organizations Aim to Cooperate More Closely," 26 December 2002; e-mail from Torsten Moritz (CCME) to author, 29 October 2004. http:// www.humantrafficking. com/ humantrafficking/client/view.aspx? ResourceID=338.

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ficking in Women, "an action-oriented guide for awareness-raising and social assistance." In addition to outlining the alarming dimensions of trafficking, the study provides sound, practical advice for Christians motivated to move beyond concern to action. Types of assistance that CAT suggests should be offered victims of trafficking include:

• Shelter, medical assistance, food, and clothing

• Social, psychological, and spiritual assistance

• Legal and financial assistance

• Moral support for victims in legal proceedings and meetings with police

• Help in contacting other services including doctors and advice centers

• Information on sexually transmitted diseases

• Help in contacting family and relatives

• Help in legalizing residency in the destination country and assistance for victims desiring to return home

• Visiting victims in hospitals and prisons

• Arranging therapy for drug users and the traumatized

• Arranging vocational training and employment.62

Above all, the added dimension concerned Christians can bring to aftercare is compassion based on the con-

62 CAT, Christian Action and Networking Against Trafficking in Women (2003), 23-24.

63 Ibid., 33.

viction that the spiritual healing of the Great Physician is the best hope for overcoming the pain, brokenness, and trauma suffered by trafficking victims.

Christian Action and Networking also offers sobering reflection on church involvement in combating trafficking: "churches and church-related organizations play an important role in assistance and prevention and should be aware of their responsibility, being committed to the dignity of human beings." Sadly, however, church leaders and church members are sometimes unwilling "to take trafficking as seriously as it would need to be taken. It is even more painful to acknowledge that trafficking is not a problem of 'them' but of 'us': a great number of those profiting from the trafficking, or who are as 'clients' using the services of trafficked women forced into prostitution, are baptized Christians."63

At the same time, Christian Action and Networking concludes that "An important element of work against trafficking which is specific to churches is the resource and power of prayer and the biblical message." The study quotes I Corinthians 12:26-27: "If one part of the body suffers, all the other parts of the body suffer with it," and it reproduces a powerful paraphrase of Psalm 69 from the perspective of a woman subjected to trafficking:

Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. My feet can no longer touch bottom in the deep mire where I am sinking ... You know how I am insulted and shamed, you know who they are, my tormen-

tors. Shame has broken my heart and brought me to despair. I long for someone who sees me and cares about my pain ... Those who looked to God for counsel and help find new courage in their hearts. For God hears the voice of the poor and needy. God identifies with those in bondage.64

Caritas Europe and CCME work together closely not only in compassionate ministries and church awareness campaigns, but also in lobbying the European Union for common European migration laws that could undercut criminal trafficking. Both "are convinced that more straightforward and transparent visa regulations and comprehensive information about legal working possibilities in different European countries could significantly reduce the number of women who are in danger of trafficking."65 Most recently, Caritas Europe and CCME co-sponsored a public meeting on counter-trafficking efforts at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, 4 March 2004.66

Additional Catholic Efforts

The International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC) is especially active in providing protection and reintegration services for women trafficked in Europe.67 Also, Sister Eugenia Bonetti leads the efforts of some

two-hundred nuns in the Italian Union of Major Superiors, working fulltime to provide housing and security for hundreds of women trafficked to Italy from Eastern Europe and other parts of the world.68 Recently Sister Eugenia has taken on the task of urging Catholic men's as well as women's religious orders to become more active in fighting trafficking. With financial help from the U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, her order has developed training programs for Catholic religious who have begun, or plan to begin, work on behalf of trafficking victims. Between January and May 2004 the Italian Union of Major Superiors led four training courses focused on prevention for over eighty members of religious orders from Nigeria, Albania, and Romania.

Finally, two Italian priests assist many victims of trafficking in Italy. In 1995 Don Cesare Lo Deserto founded a safe house near San Foca, Puglia Province, Italy, for women fleeing brothels. To date, over one thousand victims of sexual trafficking have found safe haven, protection, and compassionate care in his Fondazione Regina Pacis Shelter.69 Similarly, Father Oreste Benzi, founder of the Pope John XXIII Community, has helped over two thousand women escape the control of traffickers and pimps. At

64 Ibid., 34.

65 "Female Victims." See also Haynes, "Used, Abused," 261.

66 "European Churches Initiate Review of Progress

in Combating Trafficking in Women," CCME and

Caritas Europe Joint Press Release, 1 March 2004.

67 International Catholic Migration Commission, "Overview of ICMC Counter-trafficking Programming," 9 January 2004, http://www.icmc.net/docs/en/about/cotraff.

68 State, Trafficking, 2004, 36; Dutch Foundation of the Religious Against Trafficking in Women, Trans actions 5 (August 2004), 3, 6.

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any one time shelters run by his community harbor some two hundred women from many countries. On 15 May 2002 this man of compassion accompanied five hundred former prostitutes, mostly from Eastern Europe and Africa, to a general audience with John Paul II. The pope encouraged the women to "keep walking the path toward full freedom, which is a foundation of human dignity."70

Additional Protestant Efforts

Other West European, mostly Protestant, direct intervention charities ministering to prostitutes and former prostitutes include The Scarlet Cord (Amsterdam), Christian Aid and Resources Foundation (Amsterdam), Door of Hope (London), One25 Limited (Bristol), and Alabare Christian Care Centers (Bristol). These groups reach out to local women and women trafficked from Asia, Africa, and, increasingly, Eastern Europe. Other Christian ministries combating trafficking and aiding its victims in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union include The Bible League (Serbia), Shared Hope (Moldova), Assemblies of God (Moldova and Ukraine), World Vision (many countries of the region), Door of Life (Thessaloniki), Lydia's House (Athens), Internation-

al Teams (Athens), The Lost Coin (Athens), Sonia (Limassol, Cyprus), Rahab Ministry of Hungarian Baptist Aid (Budapest), United Methodist Committee on Relief (Pristina, Kosovo), Hagar (Central Asia), Ministry to Women in Prostitution (Bishkek, Kyrgyzia), NGO "Suyuu-Bulag" (Bishkek, Kyrgyzia), and Podruga NGO (Osh, Kyrgyzia).71 Emma Skjonsby is a missionary with International Teams ministering in Athens, Greece to women engaged in prostitution. During Easter season, 2004, she shared the following with her supporters:

Everywhere we went that night, the presence of the Lord went ahead of us. Although the atmosphere was exceedingly depraved and dark, the light of the Lord made it a joy to be there. It was the first brothel I'd been in and I cautiously pushed open the door and stepped inside. It's a bare room, lined with benches and a curtain. We catch sight of an old, lumpy woman with half her teeth missing and a suspicious look on her face. "What do you want?" she asked. We explain that we brought a gift for the girls working there and asked to speak with them. Another woman, let's call her Eleni, pokes her head out to see what's going on. We wish her a happy Easter and invite her to pick a can-

69 Malarek, Natashas, 106-17.

70 John Thavis, "Vatican Conference Examines Dramatic Cost of Human Trafficking," Catholic News Service, 23 May 2002, http:// www.catholicherald.com/cns/sex-slaves.htm. See also "AIDs Victim, Who Wept in Pope's Arms, Dies," 22 March 2001, http://www.zenit.org/ english/archive/0103/ZE010322.htm#3786.

71 "International Consultation on Ministry to

iНе можете найти то, что вам нужно? Попробуйте сервис подбора литературы.

Women in Prostitution," Conference Program, Green Lakes, Wisconsin, 7-13 August 2004; Toos Heemskerk-Schep, "Presentation on Reaching Out to Prostitutes," Scarlet Cord, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; phone interview with Guy Hovey, regional director for Europe and Asia, United Methodist Committee on Relief, 2 November 2004; E-mail from Ruth Pojman, USAID, 23 November 2004.

dle. As we offered the brightly wrapped [Jesus film] video and the candle to Eleni and then to the madame, it was so beautiful to watch their expressions soften from suspicion to surprise and joy. When was the last time they were loved?

In the next dark brothel we entered, a sun-withered Greek man suspiciously greeted us. As we explained that we were there to offer an Easter present to the women, he called out for Mirella to come see us. She is a young and charming Albanian and was delighted to receive a candle and the video. Both of them invited us to come back again. Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome the light! This is what Easter is about and I'm so delighted to be part of the light in Athens. Thank you for fighting with us on behalf of these precious

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women.

More recently, Emma and her co-laborers reached out to "women working out of hotels, cafeterias, bars, brothels, and the streets" during the August 2004 Athens Olympics. Perhaps because of the overwhelming security and police presence, the number of women on the streets was down. Emma noted another shift in Athens prostitution: "Russian, Bulgarian, and Albanian women are quite rapidly being replaced by young African girls."73

Two American anti-trafficking charities serving East European women are Make Way Partners (Protestant; Tuscaloosa, Alabama) and Inter-

national Partners in Mission (Catholic; Cleveland, Ohio). Make Way Partners is a U.S.-based evangelical mission that works "to prevent and combat" sexual trafficking in women and children. Founders Milton and Kimberly Smith, with the help of Western churches and Christian entrepreneurs, organize "income generation teams" in Ukraine and Moldova, "planting small businesses through local Christians." To counter extremely high unemployment rates, especially for women, "these teams offer practical alternatives to human trafficking while sharing the Hope of the Gospel."74

Integra Venture, a faith-based community economic development agency based in Bratislava, Slovakia, also believes helping economically destitute women obtain gainful employment is a critical component in preventing sexual trafficking. To that end in 2003 it launched "Microenterprise Development for Women at Risk," an eighteen-month project in the Balkans funded by the European Commission.

In Croatia and Serbia, Integra is training at-risk women to establish small businesses capable of supporting themselves and their families. In other cases, women who run promising small businesses are receiving loans through a micro-credit scheme. The economic opportunities offered to victims of trafficking by such groups as Integra Venture, Make Way Partners, the Salvation Army, and World

72 E-mail from Emma Skjonsby to supporters, 21 April 2004.

73 E-mail from Emma Skjonsby to author, 13

October 2004.

74 MakeWay Partners Web site: http://www. makewaypartners.com; International Partners in Mission Web site: http://www. clmission.org.

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Vision provide women "not just a way out, but a way of transcending the evil that has imprisoned them."75 The Romanian Orthodox Church

Unfortunately, most churches in post-Soviet Bloc states do not appear to have recognized the seriousness of sexual trafficking from and within post-Soviet states. One encouraging exception is the Romanian Orthodox Church.

In 2002 it agreed to a collaborative effort with the intergovernmental agency International Organization for Migration (IOM). The two parties are working together to raise public awareness of trafficking, which Romanian Orthodox Bishop Ciprian Campineanul has characterized as a plague. Romanian Orthodox Patriarch Teoctist himself has taken a strong stand against trafficking, stating that it "undermines the very being of the Romanian nation."76 He has involved his church in a variety of counter-trafficking initiatives with IOM help.

• Patriarch Teoctist has asked priests to include warnings against trafficking in Sunday sermons.

• He also has spoken out on national radio against this evil.

• The threat of trafficking is now a compulsory subject in Romanian Orthodox seminaries.

• The church and IOM have prepared counter-trafficking curricula that are made available to schools and churches.

• The church has sponsored anti-traf-ficking seminars and workshops for priests, teachers, and social workers in all twenty-three Romanian dioceses.

• The Romanian Orthodox Church is making appeals to co-believers in Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Moldova, Serbia, and Ukraine because, as Bishop Ciprian has stated, "It is necessary that all Orthodox Churches in Eastern Europe join the fight."77

A Single-Handed Orthodox Campaign on Cyprus

Another exceptional Orthodox effort is the work of a single Greek priest who, because he speaks Russian, was asked to serve a Russian Orthodox community in Limmasol, Cyprus. Father Savvas soon discovered large numbers of desperate women on the island who had been trafficked from the former Soviet Union to work in

75 Janice Crouse, "Ending Modern-Day Slavery: Some Solutions to Sex Trafficking," Concerned Women for America, www.cwfa.org, 23 September 2004; e-mail from Allan Bussard, Integra Venture, to author, 7 September 2004.

76 IOM, "Albania and Romania," 25 January 2002.

77 Letter in author's possession from Bishop Ciprian Campieanul, on behalf of Romanian Orthodox Patriarch Teoctist, to the Holy Synod of the Greek Orthodox Church, 19 December 2003. See also IOM, "Romania—Counter

Trafficking Information Campaign Reaches Some 1.6 Million," IOM Press Briefing Notes, 2 April 2002; IOM, "Romania, Anti-Trafficking," IOM Press Briefing Notes, 14 August 2001; "Counter Trafficking Campaign Enlists Support from the Romanian Orthodox Church," IOM Press Briefing Notes, 25 January 2002; interview with Ashley Garrett (IOM), 17 August 2004; interview with Dorothy Taft (OSCE), 17 August 2004; e-mail from Robert Aronson to author, 25 September 2004.

prostitution. Ruth Pojman of USAID calls him a "veritable one-man anti-trafficking campaign" as he uses his cell phone as a mobile hotline for women fleeing prostitution, provides safe shelter for these same women, fearlessly raises public awareness of the scourge, shames local Greek Cyp-riot clients "by showing up as they are leaving brothels and hotels," and as he harangues and lobbies a host of complicit authorities and governments. "Importantly, he is trying his best to pressure [Cypriot, Russian, and Ukrainian] authorities to take real action and to implement good legislation."

No better example of Father Sav-vas' concern is his righteous indignation over the case of "a Russian girl who died trying to escape after being returned to her traffickers by local police. He is hoping to get the police department to take responsibility for its actions."78

Evangelical, Ecumenical, and Catholic Meetings

Since the early 1990s, governments, international agencies, and secular NGOs have convened literally hundreds of meetings, conferences, and workshops and have published hundreds of reports addressing sexual trafficking in women. Specifically Christian efforts to combat traffick-

ing, however, have been slower to emerge.

Still, growing U.S. evangelical participation in the campaign for anti-trafficking legislation precipitated a mushrooming of concern and more sustained action.

Lisa Thompson's IAST Coalition and the stream of open letters to politicians illustrate this dynamism and determination. So, too, do recent meetings organized by concerned Christians. The Conference of European Churches, for example, sponsored a consultation on "Trafficking in Women in Europe" at Driebergen, Netherlands, 27 November-1 December 1999.79

Two years later American Baptist minister Lauran Bethell, who since 1987 had been directing a safe house in Thailand for former prostitutes, attended a conference of the National Christian Alliance on Prostitution held in England in 2001. Out of that meeting came her dream for a consultation "bringing together the founders and leaders of Christ-based organizations ministering to women in prostitution, along with some of the women who have discovered freedom in Christ through their minis-tries."80

The result was the "International Consultation on Ministry to Women in Prostitution" held at Green Lakes,

78 E-mail from Ruth Pojman, USAID, to Kent Hill, USAID, 8 November 2004, forwarded to author.

79 Conference of European Churches, Trafficking

in Women in Europe, Papers from an International Consultation held in Driebergen, Netherlands, 27 November-1 December 1999 (Geneva: Conference of European Churches, 1999). See also http:/

/www.cec-kek.org/English/trafficking. htm. 80 Letter from Lauran Bethell to conference participants, "International Consultation on Ministry to Women in Prostitution," 7-13 August 2004. See also Harold Fickett, The Living Christ; The Extraordinary Lives of Today's Spiritual Heroes (New York: Doubleday, 2002), 122.

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Wisconsin, 7-13 August 2004. Over two hundred participants representing twenty-six countries gathered to network, to receive and provide moral support for those ministering to women in prostitution, and to learn best practices and mistakes to avoid. While most of the Christian ministries attending the meeting work in Asia, at least ten groups represented at the Green Lakes consultation provide care for trafficked women in Western and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, in June 2004 the European Regional Partnership Group of the World Council of Churches, meeting in Durres, Albania, voiced its concern for greater church involvement in counter trafficking efforts.

In addition, the ecumenical Norwegian Church Aid plans to focus on trafficking in its 2005 Lenten campaign.81

Overall, the Vatican seems to have been slower to appreciate the massive dimensions of the trafficking crisis than some of its subordinate bodies such as Caritas, ICMC, and the Italian Union of Major Superiors. Nevertheless, in recent years Pope John Paul II has sponsored conferences at the Vatican addressing the problem (15-16 May 2002 and 17 June 2004).82

What Has Been Done? What Needs To Be Done?

It is hoped that research on Christian responses to human trafficking will encourage more churches and church members to become involved in combating this modern day slavery. In addition to taking stock of who is doing what and where, other questions also need to be addressed. Who is working most effectively in prevention of trafficking, prosecution of traffickers, and aftercare for those who have been trafficked? What additional legislation should be enacted and in which countries in particular? What best practices in combating trafficking, caring for its victims, and lobbying governments can be identified and highlighted for others to copy? What—even well-intentioned— mistakes have been made that ought not to be repeated?

To answer these questions churches and faith-based organizations need to study the best efforts of Christians and others of like mind presently working to combat trafficking. For example, Robert Aronson, director of programs for the anti-trafficking Miramed Institute, has written and produced Let's Go to Paris, a Russian-language puppet drama whose purpose is to warn teenage girls about the false promises of ads touting jobs in the West. This production would be just

81 E-mail from Torsten Moritz (CCME) to author, 29 October 2004.

82 Thavis, "Vatican Conference"; "Letter of John Paul II to Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran on the Occasion of the International Conference 'Twenty-First Century Slavery—The Human Rights Dimension to Trafficking in Human Beings,'" 15

May 2002, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/ john_paul_ii/letters/2002/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_20020515_tauran_en.html; "Conference Lauds Women Religious' Role in Fighting Human Trafficking," Catholic News Service, 17 June 2004, http://www.geogiabulletin.org/world/ 2004/06/17/W0RLD-3.

as appropriate for East European church youth groups as for school audiences. Aronson specifically encourages East European Christians "to identify anti-trafficking NGOs who are not faith-based, but are in accord with their principles, and work with them closely since they have the expertise."83

The Role of Faith-Based Organizations

Whatever Christians have done to date to combat trafficking, it still must be conceded that in this cause the church of Christ as a whole has been a sleeping giant. Nevertheless, there is hope in its untapped potential to demand justice and to offer compassion. Sister Mary Ellen Dougherty of Migration and Refugee Services of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops gave a brief but power-packed Christian call to arms at a Vatican-sponsored anti-trafficking conference in June 2004. Her presentation, "The Role of Faith-based Organizations in the Fight Against Trafficking in Persons," deserves careful study. In summary, she ably makes the case for faith-based action to combat trafficking.

1. There is a "logic" in "lodging anti-trafficking work in faith-based organizations."

83 E-mail from Robert Aronson to author, 25 September 2004; Miramed Institute Annual Program Report, 2003, p. 6. For a listing of anti-traffick-ing NGOs by country, see F. Luckoo and M. Tz-vetkova, Combating Trafficking in Persons: A Directory of Organizations (London: Change, 2002), http://www.antislavery.org/homepage/re-sources/DSTraffickingl.PDF.

a. They possess "theological perspectives on justice that mandate action."

b. They possess a phenomenal networking potential through the broad-based geographic reach of local houses of worship.

c. They have history and staying power, offering "continuity, stability, and permanence to the work."

2. Faith-based bodies can use these strengths in a show of spiritual force against the powers of darkness.

a. They can educate their own community and the public in awareness and prevention campaigns. "Once a significant segment of the organization is convinced and educated, the potential for effective contribution is unlimited."

b. They can assist victims by offering safe havens, assistance in accessing counseling, health, legal, and educational services.

c. They can build alliances of the like-minded to exert strength through numbers. "The value of the coalition is the ongoing education of its members, the sharing of resources, and the mutual commitment to action."

3 . Finally, there are reasons for "hope as we pursue efforts to eliminate human trafficking."

a. "Knowledge of human trafficking is spreading [and] more and more people are becoming educated about it."

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b. "There is [growing] power and authority behind the message against human trafficking. Governments across the world are converging around this common cause. Where they are not, there is the constant and concrete reminder to them that this is, universally, a human rights issue. National and international media are addressing that." The anti-trafficking campaign, though still in its infancy and facing an entrenched, absolutely unprincipled, and extraordinarily wealthy adversary, can take heart in the fact that it is becoming increasingly clear, even to indifferent and corrupt governments, that opposition to trafficking will not go away and it will continue to grow.

c. "Finally, there is that which is beyond all of us. There is hope in our capacity for prayer. Simplistic as it may sound to the sophisticate, God can do what we cannot do. God will do what we cannot do. We all have our prophets and our saints. In their struggles against injustice, they did not waste their lives. They did not simply visit the world. That is why they are prophets and saints. We are in good company."84

A Final Call for Christian Action

It is imperative for believers to come to terms with the abominable assault on the God-given dignity of every woman and child inflicted by traffickers, pimps, and johns. And after comprehending the massive dimensions of this international slave trade in women, Christians, West and East, must decide how best to pray and put feet to prayers, how best to comfort the afflicted, and how best to afflict those who ignore the most basic of human rights and who inflict grievous harm on million of women and children created in the image of God.

A Final Call for Christian Action

It is imperative for believers to come to terms with the abominable assault on the God-given dignity of every woman and child inflicted by traffickers, pimps, and johns. And after comprehending the massive dimensions of this international slave trade in women, Christians, West and East, must decide how best to pray and put feet to prayers, how best to comfort the afflicted, and how best to afflict those who ignore the most basic of human rights and who inflict grievous harm on million of women and children created in the image of God.

84 Mary Ellen Dougherty, "The Role of Faith-based Organizations in the Fight Against Trafficking in Persons." U.S. Embassy to the Holy See Conference, "A Call to Action: Joining the

Fight Against Trafficking in Persons," Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, Italy, http:// Vatican.usembassy.it/policy/events/tip2004/ dougherty.asp, 17 June 2004.

Faith-Based Responses to Trafficking in Women from Eastern Europe Текст научной статьи по специальности «История и археология»

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