Be An Abolitionist

Modern day slavery. I had never thought about it until last night when Daniel and I saw a preview of the film, "Amazing Grace." It debuts in theaters February 23. We encourage you to go see it!

Here are a couple of websites to learn more about modern day slavery and human trafficking. www.theamazingchange.com and www.freetheslaves.net The following are statistics and brief stories taken from The Amazing Change website. For the complete stories you can click on this link.

STATISTICS

27 Million: Number of people in modern-day slavery across the world
Sourced by the UN, New York Times, Amnesty International, The Christian Science Monitor, and Free The Slaves, among others.

800,000: Number of persons trafficked across international borders each year
Sourced by the US State Department, International Justice Mission, and Antislavery.org, among others.

17,500: Number of foreign nationals who are trafficked into the U.S. every year
Sourced by the US House Of Representatives, and the Polaris Project, among others.

91: Number of cities in the United States with reported cases of trafficking
Sourced by Georgia State Representative Jack Kingston, Freetheslaves.net, and Polaris Project, among others.

50: Percent of all victims are children
Sourced by the US House of Representatives Committee on International Relations, and the US Department of State, among others.

$50 Million: US Government budget for efforts against human trafficking
Sourced by the US State Department.

$19 Billion: US Government budget for efforts against drug trafficking
Sourced by the White House Drug Policy website.

20 Million: Number of bonded laborers in the world
Sourced by Free The Slaves.

218 Million: Estimated number of children working aged between five and seventeen
Sourced by the International Labor Organization.

126 Million: Estimated number of children who work in the worst forms of child labor - one in every twelve of the world's five to seventeen year olds.
Sourced by the International Labor Organization, UNICEF, and the US Embassy in Uruguay, among others.

300,000: Estimated number of child soldiers involved in over 30 areas of conflict worldwide, some younger than 10 years old.
Sourced by UNICEF, the BBC, and Amnesty International, among others.

STORIES

James
An abducted child kept as a slave in the Lord's Resistance Army, James was forced to brutally kill his own brother who had been abducted with him. He was rescued from captivity, but demonstrates the fragile psyche of a child victim forced to kill or be killed.

Sita in Bihar
Thanks to Free The Slaves' presence in Purnea, India, Sita is no longer suffering at the hands of her captors as a bonded prostitute.

Kani
International Justice Mission had just raided the rock quarry rescuing 76 people from bonded slavery including many children. Just as the operation was complete and IJM staff were leaving, a desperate woman banged on the door of one of the cars in IJM's caravan.

Nagaraj
For Nagaraj, the hope of a life of freedom was stronger than the threats and abuses he and others endured in the brick kiln. The worst part, he says, was seeing his children there, getting sick from excessive work in the searing heat, knowing that they could never go to school and would grow up to become another's property. Nagaraj himself was a slave since the age of 12.


Laxmi Shrestha
Lami is a ten-year-old RUGMARK student who was rescued from a Nepali carpet factory by RUGMARK inspectors at the age of six. She now lives at a RUGMARK rehabilitation center and attends fourth grade at a nearby private school.