How much are you worth?

What would it take for you to sell your friend? Your child? Yourself??? Is there anything that would make you consider it? Perhaps it is too far out of the realm of possibilities to even think of. I know I would want to claim that nothing in the world could entice me to sell anyone who is dear to me. Or even anyone who is my enemy. I can't even imagine giving a life for any amount of money. And especially for the tiny amounts of money that girls are often sold for. It's usually only a couple of dollars, if that. Talk about feeling worthless. A girl's life, her body, everything that she has, is sold for a pittance.

But for so many people, this is a reality. They don't really see any choice other than getting involved with human trafficking. Sometimes parents don't want their daughters, but sometimes it is a case where they simply don't think they have any other recourse unless they want their entire family to die. They are sacrificing one member of the family to save the others. And then when the girls are in a brothel, being sold, they are told that if they leave, their families will be killed. Or they are told that their families are in need of the money that they bring in, and they believe that the "work" that they do will help their family. Even though, once the girl is sold, her family does not see any money. So the girl is trapped, and the family is pretty much in the same position that she was in to begin with. 

Then there are girls who sell themselves. They have no other means of earning money, because they have not been educated, and they have not been given opportunities to better their own life. Maybe that is why it is hard for me to picture selling myself or selling someone else. Because I always have some other way that I could earn money. Maybe I'd end up with a boring job; something that really isn't my cup of tea; but really, anything would be better than what these girls go through as they are raped sometimes 40 times a day. But when your only other option is death, it would be a tough thing decision to make. 

The focus of our youth group's Battle of the Bands was raising money for the A21 Campaign (www.thea21campaign.org) to fight human trafficking. We sold shirts and watches and whatnot, and we had some info about the A21 Campaign. We had a cage that represented girls who are in captivity. The original plan was to have a girl in the cage, with a sign around her neck that read help. That idea changed though, and we gave people the chance to put their friends in the cage. We charged $10 for 10 minutes, and it was actually pretty popular. I'm sure that overall, it was an amusing game for people. I mean, who wouldn't want to put their friends in a cage. 

But I feel like it also made people think. The first person to go into the cage was one of our interns. She was ok at first. We were taking pictures of her, and she was posing, but at about 5 minutes, things changed. She asked me how much longer she had left, and when I told her that she was only halfway done, she freaked out a little bit. She started to try to figure out if she could fit through the bars of the cage, and somehow escape. And other people who were in the cage would ask after a few minutes how much longer they had left. I found that people were more uneasy when I refused to tell them how much time they had left to be in the cage. 

I told people that no girl who has been trafficked knows how much longer she has left to be in her cage. And everyone that we put in the cage knew that they only had 10 minutes to be in there, then they could get out and hang out with their friends more. And even when they were in the cage, everyone was texting, listening to the music, and talking to friends who came to talk to them. Girls (and boys) who have been trafficked have no way to contact anyone who can help them. And they don't know if rescue will ever come for them. Especially if they are no longer minors. Often, raids can't even happen unless there is a minor in the brothel that will be rescued. Older girls don't have much of a chance. 

I don't know about anyone else, but that cage really made me think. It was a fun thing to do at a fun event, but it also gave the tiniest picture of what girls go through every day. And I really hope that it opened other people's eyes as well. The only way that human trafficking will ever end is if we know about it, and if we fight it. We need to stop sitting in our little bubbles, pretending that none of this affects us. What affects the world affects you. You wouldn't stand by if you saw a little girl being raped (or at least I hope you wouldn't), so open your eyes and see what is happening all over the world. Including here in the U.S. Just because a country is not 3rd world does not mean that it is devoid of human trafficking.