The CNN Freedom Project

CNN has devoted this year to coverage of slavery worldwide, and to those who are working for abolition.  The campaign is called The CNN Freedom Project.  One of the organizations they'll be featuring throughout the year is IJM!  Here is an interview with IJM's founder, president and CEO, Gary Haugen:

Stay tuned for more exciting media coverage of IJM, including an inadvertent discussion I had with an American celebrity today about our work.

Inconvenient truths of the first world

Those of us native to the first world can easily denounce atrocities like commercial juvenile sex trafficking, condemning those who defile humanity itself and calling for swift change, all the while acting on the premise that these horrors are unique to "less refined" societies.

We are wrong.

According to a 2007 report by Shared Hope International, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice, upwards of 300,000 teenage girls are brought into sex trafficking in America annually. 
Annually.  Major sporting events like the Super Bowl are veritable meccas for sex trafficking.

Just last week ABC News ran a story on an American girl's experience being trafficked in an American sex trafficking chain, highlighting what a national problem we have on our hands.  Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, through their DNA Foundation, have launched a "Real Men Don't Buy Girls" campaign to combat this same issue.

Still, a purely national issue may not hit close to home.  Let's consider the state of sexual slavery in a city not too far from many of you.  The following video was produced last year by Teen Identity, an Atlanta-based girls' empowerment organization.

Here are the statistics one more time:

500 girls are trafficked in Atlanta every month.

The average age of an exploited teen in Atlanta is 14.

7,200 men are serviced by girls in Atlanta every month.

100-150 girls are raped for profit each weekend in Atlanta.

The youngest girl known to have been sexually trafficked in Atlanta was 9.

After entering the sex trade, an average teen will last seven years before dying or being killed.

While Atlanta knows a great darkness, a powerful light is at work as well.  To learn more, check out Street GRACE, a Christian organization whose mission is to "create an aligned, powerful, highly-resourced movement of churches united with public, private, and social sectors to bring the abolition of child sex slavery and exploitation in Atlanta."  I learned about Street GRACE a few months ago when a swell team from one of its affiliate churches came to visit our office and help conduct a training seminar for state criminal investigators.  These people are doing powerful things without leaving their hometown.  I bet they could use your help.

Sunday

This past Sunday was one of the most relaxing Sabbaths I've had in a good while.  Another IJM intern and I attended morning worship at Carey Baptist Church (where I spoke last month) and enjoyed the service immensely.  Afterward we took a walk and found ourselves on a cable car traveling through beautiful and unfamiliar parts of the city.  John, my comrade, got the lowdown from a transit official as you can see.  We felt like we were in Disney World...until the car stopped abruptly and everyone but us got off.

Just last week I was crossing a street with another IJM staffer when we heard a perilously loud pop and watched as the cables suspended above a passing cable car snapped, falling onto the road a few yards away.  The locomotive ran off the track and passengers fled the cars.  Needless to say, I've been sensitive about cable cars since then.  John and I jumped off after everyone else, only to learn that the conductor had decided to stop for chai.

So much for that.  We resumed our journey on foot, passing typical Sunday morning sights.

The outside temperature hung in the mid-nineties, and we grew parched.  We passed the nicest hotel in town and figured it was as good a place as any to scrounge up clean water.  The facilities were gorgeous.

I could've sworn the pool was a mirage.  Not running to jump in fully clothed took great restraint.

John talked me down, and we kept on our way.  We discovered this old house tucked behind a stone gate. The city where we live is filled with homes that were obviously plush in their day and have fallen into disrepair.

Locals, luckily, waste no time or space putting the grounds to good use.

(Eat your heart out, Winds & Springtime Febreze.)

 

Even the trees move in unabashedly.
 

John made another friend who pointed the way to our ultimate destination, a centuries-old British cemetery.  Here's the main path inside.

John found a tombstone for a group of British sailors who were lost at sea.

We agreed that this was perhaps the most peaceful place we've found in the city.

Some of these grave markers were gigantic!

I felt as though we were in the middle of a Kipling novel.

 

Quickly jumping a couple centuries, we gawked to see this Google Street View Vehicle pass our taxi heading home.  We were so excited!

One last thing caught my eye in traffic on Sunday:

Flags.

Everywhere.

These flags conveyed a mammoth message.  Representing the winning party, they proclaimed the end to the Communist Party of India's 34-year reign in this state, which came late last week as election results were announced.  While I don't have a proper dog in the fight, I can report that most people around here seem to be thrilled.

These are days of great hope.

Mumbai: Day Three

My third day in Mumbai, Saturday, was by far the most dynamic and insightful.  I met up with an old friend and local native to see historic parts of town, and accompanied IJM Mumbai interns to the slum where Slumdog Millionaire was filmed, and went to the nicest mall I've seen on this side of the globe.  The stark contrast of disparate worlds existing side by side was staggering.

First, my friend Ingrid retrieved me from the IJM interns' flat.  Ingrid grew up in Mumbai, then lived in Tallahassee and attended my church while studying at Florida State.  After spending time with Ingrid in my hometown, I was thrilled to be in hers.  One rickshaw, one train, and one cab later, we emerged in South Mumbai, also known as Old Town.  It was beautiful! 

Parts felt just like Savannah, Georgia, though by and large the area was distinctly unique.

I was enamored of the architecture!  And it only got better:

This is the Taj Mahal Palace (not to be confused with the Taj Mahal mausoleum itself, in Agra) that was bombed on November 26, 2008.  The palace is astounding in person and is located just a hundred yards or so from the attraction Ingrid and I had set out to see: the Gateway of India.

This structure was built to commemorate the arrival of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911. The architecture is a unique combination of Hindu and Muslim styles.

Here we are in front.  We were hoping to have our picture made with the entire gateway.

...Looks like we'll have to try again another time.

Ingrid guided me back to the center of town, where I was planning to meet up with the IJM interns. The women's train car we took was some kind of crowded.

Once off the train I had a few minutes to myself to scrounge up some lunch.  Do you know what I found?

HUMMUS.

PRECIOUS, CREAMY, NOT TO BE FOUND ANYWHERE IN MY CITY, QUITEPOSSIBLYMYFAVORITEFOODINTHEENTIREWORLD HUMMUS.  Hardly believing my good fortune, I purchased a sizable bowl and went to work.

After shamelessly devouring as much hummus as was physically possible, I met up with a few interns and set out toward Dharavi, the largest slum in Asia and the initial setting of Slumdog Millionaire.  (Check out this National Geographic report on Dharavi for more information.)  I knew we were going to be part of a slum ministry for young boys, but that was it.

The boys were watching Mrs. Doubtfire when we arrived.  I liked them already.

We played games, had a snack, played instruments, and had free time.  The boys were exuberant and we all had a great afternoon.

After about two hours one of the interns leaned over to me and said, "You know, don't you, that this is a voluntary rehabilitation center for young boys who have substance addictions?"  I was shocked.  I thought the boys were just local kids having fun.  This intern told me that one boy with whom I'd been playing was seven years old and has been addicted to alcohol since he was four.

I had a few minutes to process this revelation as the boys transitioned into performance mode.  They knew the Bollywood-style dance to Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire and wanted to show us.  Their dance undermined what little composure I had left.

One night in the summer of 2008, my sister announced that my family needed to watch Slumdog Millionaire together.  As none of us shared her conviction, the viewing took great prodding.  Once finished, though, we all agreed we were thankful to have seen the film.  Our eyes were opened not only to a part of the world with which we were unfamiliar, but to a degree of poverty that was beyond our comprehension.  As I sat in our living room that evening I never imagined I would find myself in India, let alone the very slum portrayed in the film.  I have listened to Jai Ho hundreds of times on my iPod, but never imagined I would hear it play while children of Dharavi sang and danced. 

As I watched the boys, I marveled at their lighthearted joy.  I wondered what the film meant to them.  Was it hope for designing a future more prosperous than their past?  Was it a tease?  A preposterous and cruel joke?  While we did not discuss the matter at length, and I am well aware that the film was subject to mixed reviews on cultural sensitivity, I couldn't help but think that these boys seemed to take heart.

When the dance concluded the boys ran for their coloring books to display their work.  One showed me a beautiful scene of a home and a path with one man at each end.  A staff member explained that after learning the parable of the prodigal son the boys were tasked to draw their favorite scene.  This boy favored the moment when the lost son is welcomed home with open arms.  I was thankful to know that this boy was in a place where he, too, was embraced without qualification and allowed to be a child.

As we gathered our things to leave, the boys proudly approached us with hats for the road.  They'd made them from folded newspapers.  We wore them gladly.

As we reached the main road we found some other boys who seemed to be able to put the hats to better use, so we handed them over.

This was our last glimpse of the lane by which we had entered Dharavi.  I won't forget it anytime soon.

En route to our next stop we passed one of India's quintessential sights: the family motorcycle.

Four people and groceries!  Remarkable!  Three were willing to pose as I hung out a cab window:

I loved this patisserie slogan we passed in traffic:

For evening entertainment, my friend Christina suggested we head to the mall.  I didn't fight her hard.  I expected to see the likes of Nike and French Connection shops, any of which would have been a fresh breath of home.  Instead, I saw this:

Even a professional pianist in a corner:

On one hand, I was starstruck by the luxury before me.  On the other, though, I struggled to embrace such fine sights knowing they sat just a few miles from Dharavi.  This is the peculiarity of India- prominent here, though certainly present in other countries as well- the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor not only reside in the same nation, but nearly in the same neighborhood.  Why?  Everyone seems to have their own answer, but most appear perilously simplified.  I've no clue myself.  

And that's why I'm going to Oxford.