The ComTra Project

Today, I had a lunch with a guy that asked about what exactly this non-profit I’m working on was about.  I told him it’s designed to help in the fight against human trafficking.  He then said he’d heard about human trafficking.

 That “it happens in Asia, like in Vietnam and Korea.  Maybe Mexico, too.  Perhaps Texas.”

I looked at him, wondering how much to say; how much did he really want to hear about this issue?  But the very purpose of The ComTra Project is to help fight human trafficking within the United States, and, after all, how can we do that if people here don’t even realize that the girl on the corner is most likely not there because she want to be?

So to my lunch buddy, I explained that it happens in the whole US: more than just Texas.  That it happens in our state, and even more so—it happens in our city.  He was shocked to hear that a trafficker had been arrested in Colorado Springs this past week; about the trafficked girls from Detroit being sold and re-sold at a truck stop in Denver; that we even had agricultural laborers who had been rescued from a trafficking situation at a farm in northern Colorado…

Suddenly, over a lunch hour, one more person knows a little more about human trafficking in the US.  He’ll think about it next time he drives by a truck stop.  And that is a small victory for the goals of ComTra: a goal to raise awareness, a goal to help those who are fighting human trafficking, a goal to make the fight more effective.

So why do I care?

When I was eleven years old, my family lived in Naples, Italy, for several months.  One day, as my dad was driving us somewhere in this giant white van he’d rented to cart around my big family, he stopped at a light.  He told us not to look at this girl who was sitting on a street corner under a tree with a cardboard sign beside her.  Being the good child I was, I looked at her…she can’t have been much older than I was at the time.  Stringy long dark hair, red-rimmed eyes, skinny, weak-looking.  I was startled. 

My dad started explaining something about girls being brought in to the country from eastern Europe and having green cards taken away and no other options.  I didn’t fully understand what he was talking about.  But I knew something of the pain in her eyes.  You see, I have a painful background of being used for someone else’s pleasure at a young age.  Used by people my parents should have been able to trust…

The pain, the listlessness I saw on that girl’s face startled me because I knew how she felt.  I felt her hurt and her shame.  And I began to despise a system that let her sit on the corner while whoever was controlling her was walking around in freedom.

Over the next 10 years, I began to hear whispers of problems in Asia with children forced into prostitution, of a German woman who married an Army soldier who took away her papers and controlled her every move once they’d moved to the US, of Filipino women going after jobs in Saudi Arabia and never again contacting their families, of a young woman named Natalie Holloway who disappeared in the Bahamas.  All sad, all tragic situations.

In college, I saw an advertisement for a film called Human Trafficking.  I started to research the term, and as I did, I began to sense these situations could be related.  But how?

Was there just something wrong with mankind?  Did it only happen in poor communities? How could child prostitution be linked to my Filipina friend’s cousin disappearing? 

I soon learned that it all fell under the category human trafficking:  The use of one person by another for commercial gain through force, fraud, or coercion.  “Modern slavery” is a popular term for this industry.  Yes, an industry.  A criminal industry that is equal to the illegal arms trade in terms of revenue.  And it’s gaining on drugs.  Simply because human beings are re-usable.

So why should I do something?

My personal story gives me empathy for the victims of sex trafficking; but my sense of justice compels me to fight for every human being who is currently held in some sort of “modern slavery.”  As a Christian, there is a Bible verse that speaks directly to my heart about engaging in the fight against human trafficking: Isaiah 58:6 says

“No, this is the kind of fasting I want:  Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you.  Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people.”

Let the oppressed go free.  I love that.  I’ve had to deal with my own past, to learn what freedom means to someone who thought they were under someone else’s selfish control…Now I want to help that young girl on the street corner!  I want to say that someone searching for a better life should not be allowed to disappear because traffickers take advantage of them!  I want to stand beside the men and women who are fighting to end this problem within our own communities.  The men and women who say that this is NOT okay; this should not be risk to their children; and that we will fight for justice for those who cannot do it for themselves.

"Human Trafficking: Urgent Response Required."

I recognize there are some great anti-trafficking organizations out there.  But I know from years of interest and engagement, there are many people who cannot find out how they can help or get involved without being directed to sites that are primarily internationally-focused.  While these organizations are vital, too, for now, my focus is my own neighborhood, city, country.  Like the guy I was at lunch with—most Americans have now heard of this, but they don’t realize it happens here, under their noses.  If we want to change the culture that accepts human trafficking (or at the very least turns a blind eye to it), we need to let people know that it’s happening, and what can be done to stop it.  No one website or organization will have the full solution.  But for now, ComTra can gather and share information to help-to make the fight more effective. 

And that’s my goal.  That’s my part of this fight.  There’s a child, a man, a woman who will sleep in captivity tonight.  Since I know that, how can I do nothing?