Stop the Traffik
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Today's Wild Card author is:
and the book:
Stop the Traffik: People Shouldn't Be Bought & Sold
Lion UK (April 1, 2009)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cherie Blair is a human rights lawyer and campaigner on women's rights and empowerment, wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and author of Speaking for Myself. Steve Chalke is UN.GIFT special advisor on human trafficking, and founder of Stop the Traffik. He is the author of several books, including Change Agents, Intelligent Church, The Lost Message of Jesus, and Trust.
Visit the author's website.
Product Details:
List Price: $16.95
Paperback: 160 pages
Publisher: Lion UK (April 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0745953603
ISBN-13: 978-0745953601
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
Wihini, aged nine, and her brother Sunni, aged seven, loved on Thane train station in Mumbai, India with their parents—both alcoholics. Wihini and Sunni went to a day centre where they learned to read and write and were given the chance to play.
One day Sunni and Wihini simply didn’t turn up. Street children often tend to disappear for days, as they try to scrape a living sweeping long-distance trains, but they had been attending the center daily for three months, so when a week or so went by the project staff became worried, and went in search of their parents. The workers found the father lying drunk on the station platform. When they roused him and asked about the children, he admitted that a man had come to him one morning offering money for them. He needed money for alcohol, so he agreed. The trafficker had taken Sunni and Wihini away for the equivalent of just 20 British pounds (currently equivalent to $30 US dollars). The father was angry because he had never received his money. Their mother wouldn’t speak about it. The children were never seen again.
What happened to Sunni and Wihini? Nobody knows. In that area of Mumbai, children often disappeared. They are kidnapped or sold into prostitution, forced labor, adoption, or even child sacrifice. The workers at the Asha Seep center had seen this before. But this was once too often.
Wihini and Sunni’s story proved to be a catalyst. The story was picked up and passed on and as evidence gathered we realized this is happening on a huge scale, around the world—and even on our own doorsteps. Not 200 years ago. Not even fifty years ago. It was—and is—happening today. And so STOP THE TRAFFIK was born.
Human Tafficking—A Definition
Human trafficking is the dislocation of someone by deception or coercion for exploitation, through forced prostitution, forced labor, or other forms of slavery.
-800,000 people are trafficked across borders each year (US State Department)
-It is estimated that two children per minute are trafficked for sexual exploitation. This amounts to an estimated 1.2 million children trafficked every year (UNICEF)
-In 2004, between 14,500 and 17,500 people were trafficked into the United States (US State Department)
-Human trafficking generates between 10 and 12 billion dollars a year (UNICEF)
-Total profit from human trafficking is second only to the trafficking of drugs (The European Police Office; Eurpol)
The numbers tell you the huge scale of this problem. But behind each number is a sea of faces. Behind the statistics are mothers and father, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, torn apart by trafficking; these are innocent lives ruined by abuse. These are human rights violations on a grotesque scale. And the problem is getting worse.
One day Sunni and Wihini simply didn’t turn up. Street children often tend to disappear for days, as they try to scrape a living sweeping long-distance trains, but they had been attending the center daily for three months, so when a week or so went by the project staff became worried, and went in search of their parents. The workers found the father lying drunk on the station platform. When they roused him and asked about the children, he admitted that a man had come to him one morning offering money for them. He needed money for alcohol, so he agreed. The trafficker had taken Sunni and Wihini away for the equivalent of just 20 British pounds (currently equivalent to $30 US dollars). The father was angry because he had never received his money. Their mother wouldn’t speak about it. The children were never seen again.
What happened to Sunni and Wihini? Nobody knows. In that area of Mumbai, children often disappeared. They are kidnapped or sold into prostitution, forced labor, adoption, or even child sacrifice. The workers at the Asha Seep center had seen this before. But this was once too often.
Wihini and Sunni’s story proved to be a catalyst. The story was picked up and passed on and as evidence gathered we realized this is happening on a huge scale, around the world—and even on our own doorsteps. Not 200 years ago. Not even fifty years ago. It was—and is—happening today. And so STOP THE TRAFFIK was born.
Human Tafficking—A Definition
Human trafficking is the dislocation of someone by deception or coercion for exploitation, through forced prostitution, forced labor, or other forms of slavery.
-800,000 people are trafficked across borders each year (US State Department)
-It is estimated that two children per minute are trafficked for sexual exploitation. This amounts to an estimated 1.2 million children trafficked every year (UNICEF)
-In 2004, between 14,500 and 17,500 people were trafficked into the United States (US State Department)
-Human trafficking generates between 10 and 12 billion dollars a year (UNICEF)
-Total profit from human trafficking is second only to the trafficking of drugs (The European Police Office; Eurpol)
The numbers tell you the huge scale of this problem. But behind each number is a sea of faces. Behind the statistics are mothers and father, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, torn apart by trafficking; these are innocent lives ruined by abuse. These are human rights violations on a grotesque scale. And the problem is getting worse.
Stop the Traffik by Steve Chalke is a heartbreaking expose of the growing industry of slavery around the world. Chalke is an expert on human trafficking, and Cherie Blair is the wife of former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. Together they have created this consise and informative primer on how human trafficking works in the sex industry as well as the exploitation of workers. My heart broke again and again reading this book. It's filled with pictures of women and children who have been rescued, as well as statistics about the amount of people who are trapped. Reading the sheer magnitude of the millions of people, as well as the billions of dollars based on this industry, it's easy to see that the only way to shut it down for good is by the combined effort of people around the world. Along with the heartrending stories of the victims, Chalke includes ways that everyone, even those of us in small towns, can make a difference. Buying Freetrade chocolate and coffee, forming community groups to raise awareness, and recognizing the signs of trafficking are just a few. It's impossible not to be inspired to want to stop human trafficking after reading this book.
Today is your last chance to enter my contest to win a copy of Andy Andrews' The Noticer. Just send me an email with a few sentences about someone who made a major impact on your life. The deadline is tonight at 10pm. Good luck!
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