Written by Christine Mangale, Lutheran Office for World Community
Consider this:
12.3 million people are in forced or bonded labor and Sexual servitude – (UN)
Between 14,500 and 17,500 people are trafficked into the U.S. annually 80% of these are women and 50% minors. (US State Dept.)
I had the opportunity of attending the Human Trafficking Awareness Conference held at the Church Center for the United Nations, New York on September 29 – October 1, 2008.
This was of course an awakening for me, being a peer educator for many years and working with youth and young women in my home country of Kenya, given that East Africa, and Africa at large, is a hub for sex tourism and human trafficking. During high season in the coastal region of Kenya which is my home, young girls literally drop out of school in search of whatever jobs they can find. The urge for better life and the biting hunger pains is a deadly combination that puts them at high risk of being trafficked by being lured into false lucrative jobs abroad.