Exodus Cry - The Prayer Movement to End Slavery

Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, has more people than it has space to put them. 70% of Dhaka’s population does not own land of any kind, forcing people to live in extremely high density areas. Its millions upon millions struggle with over taxed infrastructures for electricity, water, and sewage. Water shortages, which can last for days, frequently erupt in protests. Congested traffic in the streets and fetid pollution in the Brahmaputra River have long been stock characteristics of Dhaka, and they are almost cliché. And yet hundreds of thousands of people arrive in this city each year hoping to find a better life.

Urbanization

Despite its challenges, Dhaka is leading the world in one very critical area: urban growth. Dhaka is a megacity swelling each year at a rate that nearly defies calculation.

Currently there are around 20 megacities worldwide, cities with populations over 10 million people. Dhaka is growing faster than any of them with an estimated 400,000 people who migrate from rural areas to the nation’s capital every single year.

For the first time in history, more people live in cities than in the country.^⁠1 Megacities like Dhaka are exploding at a rate that makes census data obsolete as quickly as computer software. The UN estimates that in less than 15 years, Dhaka will eclipse Mexico City, New York, and Shanghai in population.^⁠2

Most of the new arrivals are shuffled directly into the slums and shanty towns that house a majority of Dhaka’s inhabitants. Here, a job in a factory that pays less than $40 a month is a coveted position that offers a slim opportunity for a better life. It comes as no surprise that families often find no other recourse to starvation besides selling their daughters into brothels after they can struggle no more.

 Trafficking Synopsis

Trafficking in Bangladesh consists of many of the same tactics found elsewhere in the world and relies up on migration patterns of people stuck in poverty. Thousands travel across the border ^⁠3into nearby India for work, a pattern that provides a convenient cover for shuttling victims to sex markets throughout India.

NGO’s estimate that there are 70 or 80 women and children daily trafficked out of Bangladesh into other countries, often times for forced prostitution. The typical route runs from Dhaka, to Mumbai, to Karachi, and ends in Dubai, UAE.^⁠4

A newly minted trafficking law^⁠5 carries with it a provision for life imprisonment and even the death penalty, but as in all places in the world, laws are meaningless without a justice system that aggressively indicts, arrests, and convicts human traffickers.

Steroids

Once in a Dhaka brothel, a girl faces an incredible pressure to maintain her sexual allure. If she cannot attract paying clients for sex, she is of little use to the madam and may get beaten or even killed. While this is hardly different than women in brothels all over the world, there is one distinctive of this pressure in Dhaka:

Girls must actually become fatter to become prettier.

In a country rife with poverty, extra fat is taken as a sign of a nourished and healthy body, a preference reflected in the demand for sex. Girls in the brothels of Dhaka are turning to steroids^⁠6, such as oradexon,  to rapidly gain weight. Oradexon is sometimes used to fatten cows before slaughter, and it can have side effects such as addiction or even kidney failure. The manufacturer of the drug itself admits^⁠7 that while the drug is safe to take under the watch of a doctor, it should not be taken in extended doses. Madams and brothel owners even use the drug to make underage girls look older to evade police scrutiny.

Women in the Dhaka brothels find the lines of clients dwindling every year after they turn thirty. Their dreams of being married and starting a family are decimated– even women who are trafficking victims face a severe stigma outside the four walls of the brothel. And when they can no longer earn their keep, they are simply cast out and left to fend for themselves.

Prayer Points:

•  Ask God to send revival to Dhaka

•  Pray that God would raise up Christ-based NGO’s who would labor with brothel communities

•  Pray for the establishing of righteous police forces and judicial systems that will enforce Bangladesh’s trafficking laws.

•  Pray for the power of the Holy Spirit to break the depression and desperation on the lives of the women in Dhaka.

References:

1. http://www.globalpost.com/video/5582741/location-bangladesh-dhaka-rising

2. http://www.globalpost.com/video/5582741/location-bangladesh-dhaka-rising

3. http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=190528

4. http://www.dhakacourier.com.bd/?p=4465

5. http://www.dhakamirror.com/other-headlines/human-traffickers-to-get-death/

6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKpiHx-uedM

7. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10173115

Dear Friend,

Five years of your tremendous support and encouragement are about to culminate in a moment we have been anticipating since the beginning – we will soon place Nefarious: Merchant of Souls into your hands. You’ve made this possible, and now we have even more than our heartfelt thanks to give you – we have a powerful tool for raising awareness and action, one we know you will wield with passion.

You’ve supported the creation of Nefarious through every stage of a journey that began in February, 2007, when my wife and I met with a friend who unfolded the horrors of human trafficking to us. As she described young girls being forced into lifestyles of prostitution, we were shocked by the gruesome details. In the following days and weeks I could not escape the overwhelming conviction that I must take a stand against this injustice. The more I uncovered tragic, monstrous stories of such injustice, the greater my burden became. I am deeply passionate about seeing others, like myself, moved from ignorance to action.

I began the conceptual planning for Nefarious in the fall of 2007, a time when information on human trafficking was sparse. In 2008, a team from Exodus Cry took a trip to Southeast Asia to probe the world of sex slavery. We visited dingy karaoke bars, remote villages, massage parlors, and high-end beach destinations, finding one steady consistency—the exploitation of young women. The sights we saw and documented with our cameras stirred us to produce the Nefarious film.

Though I initially set out to document the crisis of human trafficking, I quickly discovered that the issue was broader in scope and complexity than I had thought. In order for people to understand the world of human trafficking, they needed to see all the moving parts and underlying issues that compose this wicked trade. So we shifted focus, deciding to cover the entire spectrum of the global sex industry. We traveled through 19 different countries to gather content for Nefarious, from North and Central America to Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. We recorded over 800 hours of footage and captured over 100 gripping and informative interviews from some of the most knowledgeable people on the subject.

In spite of several setbacks during the production of the film, we celebrated an historic milestone at its release last fall. God has used this documentary in a powerful way since then. Over 40,000 people globally have viewed it through our Incurable Fanatics Tour. We were able to strategically present it to United Nations delegates as well as MPs in the Australian Parliament in preparation for debates over crucial laws. Numerous film festivals have screened Nefarious, and our team has received seven awards for the quality and message of the film. What a privilege it’s been to witness hearts being restored and mindsets changed during these public screenings. And pivotally, over 2,000 of you have become part of the grassroots movement to end slavery as you’ve signed up to be an “Incurable Fanatic” right alongside us. We are so excited by your partnership, and ready for the next lap of the race!

The journey does not stop here.

Here’s where you seize the baton. It will take an army of abolitionists to change the culture of our society. While Exodus Cry will continue screening Nefarious all over the globe, I’m extremely excited to be releasing it on DVD so you can begin using the documentary to evoke change right in your own community. If each person who buys the film screens it in their home for 20 friends and family members, we can generate a ripple effect of awareness at unbelievable rates. 

Because the Lord provided for us tremendously throughout this project, we did not take on any investors and have no debt on the film. This means that all the proceeds can go right into funding the anti-trafficking work of Exodus Cry. We can provide more counseling sessions, build more lighthouses, create more awareness, and rescue more of the enslaved!

Nefarious is not a professional achievement for me. This is all very personal. I approached this issue with a desire for justice, not credentials or fame. The journey that ensued has forever changed my life. Statistics became faces. Information became real stories. Injustices became an opportunity to effect change. Not a day goes by that I am not mindful of the horrific tragedies we uncovered. However, I have also become anchored in a profound sense of hope as I’ve seen the authentic transformation of some of the most broken people on earth. Amidst the dark abyss of abuse and exploitation, I encountered a God of emancipation and salvation.
Through Nefarious, we want to see people ignited with a passion for human dignity, for the sanctity of life, and the conviction that no human being should be bought or sold. For us, this movie is about a movement as much as it is about the film. Your partnership has been vital – thank you! You’ve walked alongside us through Nefarious’ creation. We’re excited to get it into each of your hands, and watch you run!

For justice,
Benjamin Nolot
Director/Producer/Writer
Nefarious: Merchant of Souls

Buy Nefarious: Merchant of Souls on DVD here: http://nefariousdocumentary.com/store/ 

rip·ple ef·fect:  The repercussions of an event or situation experienced far beyond its immediate location.

Israel is a small geographical place around the size of New Jersey, yet the eyes of the world are upon her. The “Apple of God’s Eye,” He looks upon Israel and sees her significance. He has given her a mandate to be a blessing to the nations. With a call to be a template and the sending place of the Word, the stance Israel takes for purity and righteousness has the potential to be an effective influence that ripples out to the world (Isaiah 2:3).

Exodus Cry recently took a team to Israel, as the nation is in a Kairos moment regarding their stance on prostitution. We wanted to witness firsthand what was happening in the nation related to the issue of sexual exploitation, to offer support to those laboring for justice and change, and above all else, pray. The act of prostitution is currently legal in Israel. It is estimated that the industry generates over 2.4 billion NIS annually, most of which goes directly into the pockets of organized crime syndicates. With one million visits monthly to those exploited, and an estimated 15,000 in prostitution, the heartbreaking effects could be seen — drug use, homelessness, disease and despair were evident.  It does not take one long to be confronted with the easy accessibility of lives for sale on the streets of Tel Aviv. Passing cars and cyclists drop call girl cards, littering the streets with their advertisements.

In the midst of a nation that fuels such a high demand for prostitution, arising simultaneously is a generation of advocates for justice and righteousness. Emerging in positions of influence in media, social work and government, their voices and prayers have caused movement in the waters and a ripple has begun. Within the past six months films like Zona, created by Project NOA (Not Objects Anymore), which reveals the devastating effects of prostitution, was shown to the Knesset. Collaborative efforts of Knesset member, Mk. Orit Zuaretz, and advocates such as Jerusalem Institute of Justice, have worked to bring awareness to both Knesset members and the Israeli public.  Due to the media attention given to the issue of sexual exploitation and prostitution, there was a rapid decrease in the purchase of sexual services. Through these efforts, along with the powerful prayers given to see the eradication of prostitution in Israel, the Knesset committee voted unanimously in favor of “The Prohibition of the Purchase of Sexual Services” bill to make the purchase of sexual services illegal and the first official voting rounds in the Knesset were also in favor of the passing of the bill. Yet, opposing voices are arising. A total of three votes are necessary, so it is important that we pray. The Knesset will be in discussion and review the bill to prepare for a second vote during the summer session. Economics play a large role in this as the cost to build shelters, rehabs, recovery programs, as well as job training and welfare for 15,000 women is vital.

It is critical that we continue to stand with Israel to see the bill passed. This bill sets the criminal responsibility on the client, thus attempting to eliminate the demand for purchasing sexual services. Isaiah 2:3 declares, “For the law will go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” In order for a law to go forth, it must first be established. Israel is on the verge of a watershed moment that could set a precedent for the nations.  If passed, this law will be a quantum leap in ethical legislation.  Let us contend for Israel during this critical moment in time to take her place in regards to prostitution and sexual exploitation. Breakthrough has taken place with the passing of the bill in its first official voting rounds. Let us pray for breakthrough again, that ultimately, the purchase of sex would be deemed illegal in the nation of Israel. Let us stand for justice to see the historic event and the rippling of righteous law go forth from this place to all the nations.

Imagine a place where children go missing and no one seems to mind.

Imagine a state where, missing people disappear into a sea of 90 million people.

This is West Bengal.

West Bengal is an impoverished state that borders Bangladesh, which consistently ranks as one of the poorest nations in the world. This porous border is constantly under threat of violence or trafficking, and millions of workers freely travel across the border daily to find work. This constant traffic pattern is an ideal scenario for traffickers to simply make women and children vanish.

And children are vanishing by the thousands. According to the most recent government data on West Bengal, a region in the eastern most tip of India, 3000 children went missing last year in West Bengal alone, and 5000 the year before. Other NGO’s working in the region estimate double that number for last year. But as the Calcutta Telegraph reports, the government has taken no measures to stop child trafficking.

Too often police forces in West Bengal simply do not get involved. Late last year, Police forces in West Bengal declined to even register a crime when a young girl was abducted for a forced marriage and whisked away into Bangladesh. Instead, the abduction was registered in a police diary, a simple listing of events that requires no further investigation. Many of the thousands of children that go missing every year are listed in this diary, the impotent record of crimes not worth solving.

Kolkata, the capitol city, is host to roughly half of the 50,000 prostituted women who work in West Bengal. A study done by the ICDDRB shows that nearly 25% of those women were forced by violence into the sex trade, while nearly 70% were forced by poverty, the invisible trafficker. Kolkata is the closest major city within easy reach of traffickers looking to sell a child.

Other cities are as close as a few hours by train. Traffickers use India’s vast train system to effectively transport victims to major cities throughout the country. In February a young girl from Darjeeling, a Himalayan town in north West Bengal, was recovered in Delhi, nearly a thousand miles away. Police have recently begun conducting surprise raids on trains leaving the capitol. By looking for telltale signs of trafficking, police have already identified hundreds of victims. But they are just scratching the surface.

Unfortunately, much of the region’s dire poverty can be accredited to one man, Jyoti Basu, West Bengal’s longest standing Chief Minister (1977 to 2000), and party member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). His long stay in office earned him the unofficial title of “The King of West Bengal,” and his radical economic policies— a steady acquisition of fertile lands and a forced transformation from agrarian economy to an industrial one— have arguably driven the impoverished people of West Bengal deeper into despair. This grinding poverty, symptomatic of so many communist states in the last century, amounts to extreme vulnerability for the people, namely women and children. Communism is a scourge that has primed nations for human trafficking as a global trend by destroying local economies. Much like other communist regimes, Basu’s inner circle was well insulated from the economic side effects of communism, and his party has been accused of enjoying a posh lifestyle at resort locations while profiting from an administration-backed prostitution ring.

While the CPI(M) has lost its hold on the region in recent years, the economy of West Bengal is still suffering the effects of the policies put in place by the King of West Bengal. Dire, rural poverty, inefficiency and apathy of police forces, easy and unmonitored access to the whole of India by train, and hundreds of miles of unprotected international borders make West Bengal a dangerous place for children. If a child goes missing in West Bengal, they are almost certain to never be found again.

Prayer points:

• Pray that God would raise up righteous leaders who would help stimulate the economy and raise West Bengal out of poverty.
• Pray that God would send revival to the red light districts of West Bengal.
• Pray that Jesus would expose prostitution rackets and aid police in finding victims, that the fear of the Lord would descend on West Bengal.

By all outward indicators, Addis Ababa is a city on the rise: new building projects abound, houses are going up everywhere, and there are imported cars in the streets. This is no doubt the fruit of a 50 year old stable government, but rapid development—as seen in many places in BRIC countries— has a bad habit of leaving many demographics in the dust. The rise of child prostitution in Addis Ababa has earned it, according to the Ethiopian Reporter, a new nickname: The “Thailand of Africa.”

To understand sex trafficking in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital city, you start at Merkato. Merkato is a door, a bus station; an entry point. Women and children from all over Ethiopia come to Addis Ababa and their first stop is the long-distance bus stop in the Merkato district, but many children never make it deeper into the city. Here is where they arrive, and here is where they are sold night after night. And the steady migration patterns coming to Addis Ababa means a steady pool of new recruits for traffickers.

Even though the country has been on a journey of abolition since 1876, feudal propriety for decades into the 20th century permitted lords to take advantage—sometimes sexually—of the wives and children of a serf. This foundation stone of abuse has never been fully replaced. Beyond that, prostitution has been a well-respected vocation in Ethiopia since the Middle Ages. Throughout the era of Italian colonization and beyond to modern times, prostitution has grown with urbanization and flourished when Addis Ababa was established as the capital. As recently as 1990, a full 7% of the adult female population in Addis Ababa was involved in prostitution, with thousands of children also involved.

Rarely in Ethiopia are women abducted outright or trafficked directly into prostitution. Many young girls are sent here because of the household service industry. The demand for servants by a growing middle class (a household with many servants is demonstrably higher in status and wealth than one without) has given rise to a recruitment industry that in and of itself rarely delivers to willing recruits what was promised. Often parents living in rural areas will take the gamble in hopes that their daughter will acquire new skills that will enable her to support them. The expectation of education and meager pay is often forfeited by the young girl when she gets to the city, though the push factor of gender inequality amounts to little concern from either her family or her guardians. She may be transferred from one house to the next simply on a whim, and perhaps without pay. And that is if she is lucky. If she is not, her “employer” may turn her out on the streets where the rapacious prostitution industry awaits her.

But the streets are vicious. Largely, a prostituted woman is at the thin mercy of a buyer’s capacity for violence. It is not unheard of for a woman, if she will not lower her standard rate or agree to some deviant service for a buyer, to be taken to a hotel by a buyer’s cohort where she is gang raped.

Some women are recruited directly into prostitution by bars and clubs. Using similar practices of sending recruiters to impoverished rural regions, the recruits are transported to Addis by middlemen and then sold at auctions to local establishments that desire to provide prostitution services to their customers. The task of initiating young girls into their devastating new lot often is taken up by the bar owners themselves. In the rare case that a rape is reported and the rapist prosecuted, the perpetrator will typically be released on bail or the charges dropped altogether.

Through a complex web of history, classism, and the persistent vulnerability of women and children, Addis Ababa is a city that highlights the injustice of prostitution. When sex is commercialized, a culture of permissiveness overlooks the brutality of how women are drawn into prostitution and ignores the violence perpetrated on women trapped in the industry. The result is an atrocious evil suffered by countless victims who have been reduced to part of the cultural tableau.

This City in Focus comes from The Horn of Africa Region. To read an overview of this region click here.

For the law will go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. -Isaiah 2:3 

Israel needs your help to see righteous legislation go forth from Zion.  Israel has been entrusted with a mandate to bless the nations and there is an opportunity in the coming weeks for the passage of an important anti-prostitution bill in the Knesset translated as “The Prohibition of the Purchase of Sexual Services”. This bill criminalizes the client and can set a precedent for purity, creating a ripple effect in the nations of the earth. There is a strong correlation between prostitution and trafficking. The passage of this bill would be a significant blow to the lucrative trafficking industry in Israel which generates an estimated one billion dollars annually. It would hinder both the cover and ease which enable the oppression of women to operate freely. 

Prostitution is currently legal in Israel. It is estimated that there are one million visits to 10,000 prostituted women in Israel every month. This is in a country with a population of only seven million. Many of these clients “visit” more than once a month. 

Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute; lest the land fall into prostitution and the land become full of wickedness.-Leviticus 19:29

The Israeli government stands on the threshold of a historic opportunity, an opportunity to close the door to wickedness and bring a blessing to the nation of Israel. Your involvement is crucial.  On February 12^th, the bill will be presented to the Israeli Ministerial Committee, known as the Knesset Committee.  The decisions and recommendations of this committee have profound influence on the vote of the full Knesset.   Israel’s democracy is extraordinarily responsive to their citizens and the concerns of the global community; your voice is crucial.  Your impact will be most effective by joining us in the following three initiatives. 

Pray: Cover the ministers and 119 Knesset members in prayer, that they may defend the cause of victims who are being exploited and oppressed. We are asking you to mobilize prayer for this issue as it is the only foundation for justice to be established upon.

Social Network: spread the word. Raise awareness concerning Israel’s opportunity to address and effectively combat trafficking through the passage of this bill. Please tweet, Facebook or repost this blog and the link below.

Write: Israel takes human rights issues very seriously; therefore it is essential for public support to be raised on behalf of this issue.  For this purpose a petition has been drafted to be sent to the Knesset Committee. Your voice can play a significant role in the debate and vote of the Committee on February 12th.

If you would like to join us in this endeavor please read and sign the petition below:

Catherine’s Story

There is more than one way to try to understand the Horn of Africa. You can get only so far looking at the political boundaries of the nations. Crisp geometric lines divide the countries in some areas, whereas in others a meandering border clearly follows a river or a mountain. More telling, perhaps, is the geography of the region: the arid span of desert begins in northern Kenya and then widens east until it swallows almost all of Somalia and is stopped only by the Indian Ocean. Overlay that with a third and perhaps most important schema of population density. You will immediately see first an artery of densely populated towns streaming south from Addis Ababa through Ethiopia’s rift valley, and then another dense conglomerate huddled around Kenya’s capital city, Nairobi.

But a dynamic that cannot be mapped is political stability. On the Horn, rife with internecine conflict that adds insult to the injury of natural disasters, and turns the crises of famine into crises of mass migration, political stability is a relative idea, often as rare and unpredictable as the rains. But these days, Kenya has more than most. So when the largest drought in 60 years hit the Horn of Africa, slashing at the southern part of Ethiopia and threatening the lives of millions in South Somalia, Nairobi is where the people went.

Eastleigh Estates, a Nairobi community with a high Somali population, is known as “Little Mogadishu.” Once an unassuming suburb, it has become an international business hub. Over the last few years, a steady influx of Somali refugees has completely changed the landscape, and then began investing when the Kenyan government gave the district its increased parliamentary authority. Now littered with money transfer organizations and travel agencies, Eastleigh Estates has become a metaphor for the globalized economy, powered by technological breakthroughs.

But that also makes Nairobi one of the most reliable and stable markets in a region that is in many places descending into chaos. The contrast makes for a predictable osmosis of crime that sweeps vulnerable women and children out of the pastoral hinterlands, into the hope of food and work that major, developed metropolitan areas provide, and often into slavery. Eastleigh Estates holds the promise of a job and a life to many such vagrants, and is the perfect context for fraudulent employment agencies.

In addition to the usual trends of brothels, that front as massage parlors and strip clubs, there are growing trends in prostitution even among Nairobi’s wealthiest. The Nairobi Chronicle reported that a growing number of young women in Nairobi are resorting to professional escort services to provide their means. Women post their profiles on dating sites in hopes of attracting a wealthy, Western, “romantic” interest. In the same article, the Chronicle reports, “scenes of octogenarian Caucasians walking arm in arm with young Kenyan girls are quite common in our streets. Maternity hospitals in Kenya are also recording an increase in inter-racial babies born to unmarried mothers.” Even men, according to the article, are selling sexual services to an upscale female clientele who either, in the pursuit of career have not made time for meaningful relationships, or who are traveling to Kenya’s resort and tourist areas.

Nairobi underscores a trend that will likely be repeated and amplified in many regions in the earth in the days ahead. Globalization is not an equal opportunity employer: some areas thrive, but usually at the expense of others. As impoverished and vulnerable masses are drawn into modern-day slavery and, more specifically, into sex trafficking, the effete, wealthy classes engage in prostitution, but by the more civilized monikers of “escorts” and “dating services.” When a region or community suffers the practice of prostitution at the highest levels, it will always rationalize the slavery of prostitution at the lowest. Sex should not be included in the practices acceptable for making a living, or we will turn a jaded eye to those who are, under compulsion, sold by madams, pimps, and bar owners night after night.

This City in Focus comes from The Horn of Africa Region. To read an overview of this region click here.

The current trend towards pervasive hyper-sexualized behavior has flown under the banner of progress and freedom. Our western society has cast off conservative values to embrace a new expression of sexuality and freedom. Traditional views of purity are considered prudish while promiscuity is heralded as achievement. The rhetoric surrounding this movement beckons us to be open-minded, experimental, and tolerant. The pressure to conformity preys upon our most vulnerable primordial instincts – the desire for love and pleasure.

I find it interesting that people in our society wish to talk about dignity without morality; when in fact, no such thing exists. Freedom without morality is simply anarchy.

The torrent of injustice that cascades through the global sex industry threatens the very substance of our humanity. Veiled by seduction and masquerading as freedom, the injustice of sexual exploitation has become deeply entrenched within our world. Little by little, our sanctity and solidarity are breached. Little by little, our decency and dignity are shredded like a cheap cloth. This pervasive sexual brokenness exposes the depth of humanity’s wound like perhaps no other issue. The gaping sore of our sexual abscess requires healing that is beyond humanistic solutions.

A girl caught in the vortex of today’s sex industry faces challenges that are insurmountable in the natural. On the outside she has been ostracized from friends, family, and community. In most cases she has no education and cannot just pull herself up by the bootstraps. Emotionally, she suffers from a deep sense of personal shame and self-hatred. She has become psychologically ensnared in a pattern of thinking that alienates her from her true self and prevents her from experiencing love. Spiritually, she is oppressed and plagued with an inner barrenness. Freedom for these girls is much more than being rescued off the streets, or out of a strip club, brothel, or cage. Restoration in the lives of these broken individuals is ultimately not about human perseverance, but about God’s relentless love.

Tantamount to the tragedy suffered by women whose innocence is stolen from them is the tragedy suffered by the men who steal it. The men in the sex industry are the gatekeepers. They are the owners of the strip clubs, brothels, karaoke clubs, girly bars, and massage parlors. They are the bouncers, managers, pimps, and traffickers. They are the johns who drive the demand for sex that fuels the industry. And they are an emasculated representation of the male race. Blinded by their own lust for sex, money, and power, their lives are reduced to the basest form of cowardice. Strutting about as studs, pimps, and players, they ignore the overt exploitation of the girls they seek to dominate, unaware of their own sickness. One simply cannot purchase happiness from another’s misery.

Men must rise above the egocentric rationalization of their sexual dominance over women. A redeemed masculinity begins with a sacrificial love that doesn’t seek its own interests, but the interest of others. Our sexuality is something to be guided with discretion and great respect for our female counterparts. Dominating a women and exposing her economic inequality is not macho and does nothing to demonstrate manhood. Jesus set forth the kind of masculinity that is honorable—love expressed in humility and servanthood. As desperately as women must be freed from brothels, karaoke clubs, and cages, men must be freed from the self-centered lust that parades as manhood.

While the lamp of liberty wanes in the winds of change, we must not remain silent. We must arise and fight to recover a freedom in society that is worthy of its citizens. The global swell of unrestrained perversity necessitates a wholesale countercultural revolution to invoke the kind of widespread change that restores our dignity and expunges every counterfeit. Amidst the fog of social corruption we must regain a moral compass to navigate our way to a new day—a day where a young woman is valued not just for her body, but for her humanity.

The last thing Somalia needs is military unrest. With droughts wreaking havoc on the entire southern half of Somalia, and neighboring countries willing to invade to “help” (the last time Ethiopia invaded Somalia, the casualties ranged in the millions), this is the exact wrong time for a militant Muslim faction to arise and assert tribal dominance. But arise one did: al-Shabaab.

Drought and famine alone do not cause people to flee, the Guardian points out. While Kenya has seen refugees from all of the Horn countries in decades past, recently only one population of farmers is fleeing across international borders: Somalia’s. The reason is that for the last 20 years Somalia has lacked a stable government, and al-Shabaab currently has control of much of southern Somalia.

Seeking shelter from the famine and military transcription by roaming al-Shabaab militias, refugees have gone generally to one of two places: Mogadishu, the bombed out shell-of-a-capital-city that has never really recovered from American-led war maneuvers in the mid 1990’s, and DaDaab, the world’s largest refugee camp. While DaDaab technically sits in Kenya, the border is nothing more than an imaginary line through the desert, one boldly crossed first by al-Shabaab militants when they raided DaDaab and abducted several aid workers, then crossed later by the Kenyan military in an effort to route insurgents allegedly hiding in 10 Somali towns.

To the West, DaDaab, a refugee resettlement camp that has swollen in population and, were it officially a city, would be Kenya’s third largest. Built to house 90,000 refugees, it quickly filled to five times its capacity when, at one point, 1,300 Somalis a day were streaming across the Kenya border.

Nighttime is a dangerous time to be a woman in DaDaab. With no shelter to speak of, and a scant military presence that cannot possibly patrol the farthest outskirts, rape and abuse is common.

But an even greater threat in this migration pattern, to Mogadishu or DaDaab, is the rise in human smuggling and trafficking. In the midst of the chaos, it is far too easy for criminal enterprises to deceive young women and girls into traveling to Kenya under the auspices of safety and protection, as was the case with the young women interviewed by the Guardian.

To understand the utter lack of protection, one must only look to Somalia’s capital city, Mogadishu. Mogadishu is populated by the huddled masses that have streamed there (instead of Kenya) from the hinterlands to find any meager ration of food or medicine, perhaps the last in all of southern Somalia’s drought stricken regions.

Throughout the long months of the drought in the Horn of Africa that started last spring, al-Shabaab has seized what little control it can grasp, kidnapping and murdering westerners, raiding the offices of aid organizations, and even infiltrating refugee camps to “recruit” new members. Al-Shabaab has turned a natural disaster into a crisis as hundreds of thousands of people have fled from their homes in the pastoral, arid prairies. Now, there are no aid groups even in Mogadishu: last autumn, al-Shabaab scared off all of the aid groups when they abducted and killed several workers in the city.

Though al-Shabaab has largely lost its hold in Mogadishu, peace and victory seldom last long there. Somalia has lacked any unified government to speak of since conflict broke out in 1991. It would be inaccurate to say that Mogadishu is the nexus of the struggle against al-Shabaab; the terrorist group that has been tormenting aid groups and western visitors all along the border of Kenya and the coast.

But the battle for Mogadishu is the battle for a stable government, a rule of law that will extend protection to the hundreds of thousands of women and children sent fleeing from their homes and into the machination of highly sophisticated human trafficking networks.

This City in Focus comes from The Horn of Africa Region. To read an overview of this region click here.

We have selected the Horn of Africa as our first regional focus in 2012. The typical list of devastations that plague many parts of Africa ravage this region, and make people particularly vulnerable: poverty, poor education, unemployment, and HIV/AIDS. In addition, these countries cannot effectively control or track the flow of people across borders and suffer from a massive immigration crisis, generally into Kenya and out of the surrounding countries. Imagine a stretch of border 250 miles long that is so porous that roughly 200 people a week can simply walk from one nation to another undetected and you have the beginning of an understanding of the problem Kenya is facing with its African neighbors. And where there are people on the move, there is an opportunity for human trafficking.

But it gets worse. Currently the Horn is facing a food and water crisis due in part to the largest drought the region has experienced in 60 years. The famine of 1984-85 claimed the lives of 1 million people in Ethiopia and Sudan. The current crisis is not yet classifiably a famine, says the Guardian, but between Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, and Somalia, 10 million people are in danger. The regular droughts that in the past have come once every 10 years are getting closer together, recently spaced only 1 year apart. DaDaab, a refugee camp engineered to house 90,000 people, sits just across the Kenyan-Somali border. Because of the drought and threat of Islamic radicals, DaDaab has swollen far beyond its capacity to 450,000 people. At the height of the crisis last summer, Christian Aid reported that between 1,300 and 1,500 people were daily streaming into DaDaab’s three camps. Nick Guttman, head of Christian Aid’s emergency programs, reported that Ethiopia’s Kobe camp for refugees, engineered to house 25,000 people, was maxed to capacity just a month after opening last June.

al-Shaabab

A big part of the problem is that the radical Somali Muslim organization al-Shabaab is looking to institute a strict application of Muslim shari’a law, a state-wide implementation of the rules and values of the Koran. In keeping with this agenda, al-Shabaab has rejected outright any influence from western powers, including intervention by aid organizations. In November, al-Shabaab raided the offices of many prominent aid organizations (including World Vision) in southern Somalia and cut off all aid including food and medical supplies critical to the survival of 160,000 children.

All of this amounts to a heightened vulnerability for women and children throughout the region. With dire and desperate circumstances comes a migration of people that otherwise would not be happening, and with so many people on the move it is nearly impossible to track who is where—or who is missing. Thousands heading to refugee camps to Arab nations provides an easy cover for smugglers and traffickers moving victims to major city centers. Displaced peoples rarely have the appropriate papers to begin with, and traffickers can easily inveigle trusting and desperate people with even the flimsiest promise of protection and hope.

Predator and Prey

When UNICEF conducted an investigation into human trafficking in Africa, they found that almost half of the women interviewed regularly experienced physical abuse. The climate and culture of gender inequality has subjugated women to a de facto second hand status which provides the basis for all manner of abuses and human trafficking. This continent-wide trend is only magnified within the sprawling refugee communities in DaDaab, where young girls face molestation and abuse each night on the outskirts of the camp, far from the protection of the scant police presence.

But if this seems at all ad hoc, think again. One Kenyan human trafficking expert told the Guardian that human trafficking in the Horn of Africa is a very developed network of professionals. The network includes representatives and allies in every agency and aspect of transportation, including “politicians, senior police officers, NGOs, senior immigration officials, airline officers and resettlement officials in various countries. The general flow of people in this region is from surrounding countries, into Kenya and more specifically Nairobi, where human trafficking victims are then either dispersed to tourism destinations or countries abroad.

Children for Sale

Places like Mombassa, Kenya, a coastal resort city just a few hundred miles south of Mogadishu, has become  a sex-tourism hot spot. The awful thing about human trafficking globally is that it can be a bit like the game whack-a-mole. As one area of the world gains notoriety as a “hot spot,” governing officials crack down through a rash of new legislation. Sex-buyers, particularly those in search for child prostitution markets, get the point. Before you know it, another region sprouts up as the new “it” spot. In the last 20 years or so, Thailand, Costa Rica, and the Philippines have all at one point or another ebbed and flowed. Now, Kenya is in the limelight.

A study conducted by the African Network for the Prevention and Protection Against Child Abuse and Neglect (ANPPCAN), indicates that there is an increase in the numbers of women and children trafficked not only within the Horn countries, but also out to other nations such as Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, and even Arab countries like Yemen and Saudi Arabia which are just a short trip across the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea from the Horn.  The United Nations High Commission for Refugees reports that many refugees seeking asylum in nearby Yemen travel the frequented Ethiopia-Djibouti trucking corridor only to be swept up into the sex trade by organized criminal activity.

All of this amounts to a familiar story: when war, poverty, disease, and drought send hundreds of thousands fleeing from their homes in desperation, there are always those criminal enterprises who look to capitalize on their vulnerability. For the first part of this year we will take a deeper look into a few key cities in the Horn of Africa and learn how we can intercede on behalf of the poor and vulnerable.