Hidden in Plain Sight By Wendy AndrewsWendy Porterfield - 17 Mar 2008

The 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude...shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

Today, although slavery was abolished in the USA nearly 150 years ago and in Britain 200 years ago, there are 27 million modern-day slaves worldwide. This is more than at any time in history.

It's a $9.5 billion dollar industry annually, $3.5 billion in the U.S. Money is the motivating factor, and the fact that human beings are a renewable resource doesn't hurt either.

Globally, 500,000 to 2 million people are trafficked each year. In the U.S., that's 15,000-18,000 women, children, and men who are forced, coerced, or subjugated through fraud into unjust and illegal work in the commercial sex industry, domestic service, restaurants, cleaning services, farm labor, and construction.

Trafficking is hidden but it's in plain sight, if we'll learn to have eyes that see.

This week, my roommate Amanda and I attended a human trafficking training by an FBI agent, a man who's had 20+ years of experience investigating "white-collar" crime, and who's one of the United States' premiere FBI spokesmen. He's shared on The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, Larry King Live and National Public Radio - to name a few. He was incredible, and I was both laughing and startlingly shocked by his banter, stories, and stats. The issue of trafficking is so large, but it can be reduced to the numbers I shared above, to money as motivator, and to a handful of industries that house traffickers and trafficked people:

1. Commercial sex industry - 49%
2. Domestic servitude - 32%
3. Restaurant operations - 5%
4. Cleaning services - 3%
5. Farming - 2%
6. Others, including construction work - 9%

This FBI agent said that "most, IF NOT ALL" Asian massage parlors are fronts for forced prostitution. I heard a man speak a few months back, who shared a story of his favorite San Franciscan Indian food restaurant getting busted for forcing employment of trafficked workers. A couple on Long Island were just prosecuted for housing two Indonesian women in horrendous conditions, in slavery as maids in their very own home. A case in Kansas got busted in the past few years where mentally-ill U.S. citizens (who were paid by the state of Kansas to be cared for at this home) were forced as farm workers, and in the nude, if the former wasn't bad enough. A bus full of school children discovered these naked farmers and reported them, and the whole operation came tumbling down.

It's right in front of us.

Last week, Amanda and I were alerted to a woman who was to be freed, in Kansas City, from a trafficking situation. Amanda cooked some ethnically appropriate food for her, but we hadn't heard an update about the situation until I received an email asking, "Do you provide chaplaincy services?" Do we ever! This question said a whole lot at once - this woman was freed, she's safe, she knows Jesus, and she wants someone of her faith to talk and pray with... Somehow, Amanda and I have become the Jesus-loving go-tos for the woman who heads up the trafficking coalition we're part of, and so on Friday, I will go along with an IHOP woman, with our "chaplain" titles, and offer the hope of Jesus through our listening and prayers, to a desperate woman. I honestly don't know what we'll find - but I do know my God.

If all this provokes your heart, get involved! There are so many ways to do so. If you're in the United States, I can find out for you if there's a human trafficking coalition in your area that you might connect to. There's a good book you can check out called "Not For Sale" by David Batstone; it'lll open you up to the reality of this global slave trade. Check out our friends at Love146, and support them in any way you can. Search out how human trafficking is happening in your very own city. And, pray for God to raise up righteousness and tear down wickedness. He answers us.