Let Them Have Faces

Trafficking & The Super Bowl

2012-02-06T11:20:00.000-05:00

It is estimated that over 10,000 children were brought into Dallas last year during Super Bowl weekend to be sold for sex.

Read that again - 10,000 children brought into Dallas to be sold for sex.

The Super Bowl in Dallas (the Super Bowl in general) is sadly far from the only sporting event where traffickers appear for the event and then leave town.

Here is a quote from a Huffington Post article with an example of what happens:

...A trafficker was arrested and imprisoned for selling two girls, 14 and 18, as "a Super Bowl special." Or there's the story of A.H., who was involuntarily taken to Dallas/Ft. Worth last year where she was beaten, raped and enslaved not far from Dallas Cowboys stadium. Bluntly speaking, these are lost and broken children whose profit value is magnified this week by the Super Bowl.

Before this year's Super Bowl in Indy there was training done with hotel staff & cab drivers on what to look for. The national human trafficking resource center number (888-3737-888) was distributed, and Gov. Daniels "signed Senate Enrolled Act 4, a piece of legislation that will create stricter penalties regarding sex-trafficking in Indiana (DNonline)."
The Olympics are this summer. I am interested to see what approach London takes. Greece chose to ban the action, but did nothing to address what was really going on. Just because we can't see the crime doesn't mean it's not being committed. Maybe by upping the cost for purchasers and traffickers and increasing basic public awareness, we can do something to decrease the profit made by selling people around a major sporting event. I would like to see the NASCAR and cities hosting the NBA Playoffs and World Series take the same initiative as Indy (and Dallas) did.

What if every hotel displayed the National Hotline Number? What if we did more to education hotel staff, cabbies, and truck stop workers on the signs of trafficking? What if people did more to intervene instead of passing off the situation with judgment?

It is too early to say what impact the training and law had. It is too soon to know how many children were shuttled into the city. But at least the conversation was there. At least there was a public awareness, and action by the legislature, to say trafficking occurs. And conversation is usually the first step to bring about real, lasting change.

Playground Sponsor Form

2012-02-03T13:19:00.000-05:00

The sponsor form for the film is now available. Click the link below to download the form.

Sponsor Agreement Form

Sponsors can register until February 17th. Please make checks payable to “New Horizons Foundation” with LTHF in the subject line and mail with the attached application to:

Let Them Have Faces
PO Box 934
Colorado Springs, CO 80901

Playground

2012-01-23T13:52:00.000-05:00

Exciting news.

We are screening Playground on April 11^th at Stargazers Theater in Colorado Springs.

Playground looks at the commercial sexual exploitation (CSE) of children in America. It exposes the reality that children are being sold in the United States. American children are being exploited by Americans.

The simple reality is that before a person goes to exploit a child overseas they have exploited a child at home.

So far America has taken the wrong approach on the issue – by criminalizing the children and leaving the root cause untouched. We want to screen the film to start the discussion on CSE and highlight organizations that are doing something to stop it. After the film we will be having a panel discussion with those who see the consequences of CSE every day.

LTHF is seeking to partner with non-profits and local businesses to help bring awareness to the film and start the dialogue on CSE in our community.

There are several ways to get involved:

Premium Sponsor: $300

·         Ad on all advertising materials
·         15 second ad before film
·         Mention on Stargazer ads for film before event
·         1 full table at event
·         10 free tickets

Marketing Sponsor: $200
·         Ad on all advertising materials
·         10 second ad before film
·         Mention on Stargazer ads for film before event

Table Sponsorship: $150
· Half a table at the event

Sponsorships are due February 15, 2012.

Tickets go on sale in March through Stargazers Theater.

We are also running a campaign through IndieGoGo to help raise funds for the event and help cover some of our initial start-up costs. The campaign runs through the end of June. Head over and send the details to five friends. Help spread the word about LTHF!!

Human Trafficking Awareness

2012-01-11T13:41:00.001-05:00

Today is Human Trafficking Awareness Day. The stats are harrowing. 27 million people (at least!) are currently enslaved and they are sold for less than ever before. It is hidden, and yet isn't. Our assumptions are incorrect. It is not only happening overseas. It is not only individuals brought into the US, Americans are being trafficked. While the data is hard to come by, girls as young as 12 are being sold multiple times a day for sex. It's not only sex trafficking, but labor as well.

Labor trafficking can mean being forced to work in an agricultural arena, it can be domestic work as in being a maid or an au pair. It is forced labor to pay of a "debt." Or it can be being made to work in a sweatshop or even begging (Remember Slumdog Millionaire?).

LTHF is in the fight to end human trafficking. We partner with organizations that work with victims, to help raise awareness and get others involved. We are proud to work alongside other nonprofits in Colorado helping to address and bring an end to trafficking. Below is a video Restore Innocence did about trafficking.

LTHF collaborates with organizations fighting human trafficking, and other forms of abuse, would you consider partnering with us?

WRA Clothing Donation Day

2012-01-10T13:12:00.004-05:00

TheWomen’s Resource Agency Dress for Success Clothing Donation Day is SATURDAY,JAN 14th from 10:30am-2pm at the Women's Resource Agency office inside theCitadel Mall (on the 2^nd level near JCPenney's).

Bringyour donations of business suits or separates, shoes, purses and accessories.

All donations must be clean and suits/separates on hangers, please.

*Weespecially need size 20-28 pants, jackets and complete suits.

And new, unopenedpanty hose/knee-hi in all sizes.*

Forcar loads - come to the back entrance on the southeast side of the mall - nearService Court #7. Formore information call 719-471-3170. Thanks for your support!

www.wrainc.org

Small Changes - Big Difference

2012-01-06T16:00:00.000-05:00

Marget Starbuck over at Red Letter Christian put out this list that really hit home to me. One of the things we try to do at LTHF is show how advocacy doesn't need to be something big, but can be something simple and yet will have a profound impact. And sometimes the best advocacy is that which affects us most of all.

Take some time and think over what Starbuck is trying to get at. It can be the simplest thing in the world that we often over look that can change everything.

Ten ways the gospel that is—obviously—good news for the poor is actually also good news for those of us who are affluent….

When the rich eat less extraneous food and get healthier, faithfully stewarding our excess resources—to Blood:Water Mission—the poor eat enough and get healthier
When the rich skip an episode of Desperate Housewives, besides gaining an extra hour of life, the typically-induced envy and greed that ensue—the kinds that impact the lives of the poor who make our stuff—is squelched.
When those of us who are affluent limit our requisite shopping errands to one day a week, we’re liberated from the exhausting obsessive consumption that drives us and we consume less of the resources which impact the lives of the poor.
When the rich take a refreshing Sabbath from facebook, we get an opportunity to connect with the ones God loves on the margins who aren’t on facebook.
When the rich make the time-consuming effort to get off of the catalogue mailing lists that jam our mailboxes, and overwhelm us before we even step in the door after work, fewer forests are stripped in developing countries.
When the rich knock out all of our birthday-gift shopping at one convenient Ten Thousand Villages fair-trade location, the poor earn a living wage.
Similarly, when the rich do our Christmas gift shopping by donating goats and chickens through World Vision, the poor gain a viable livelihood. (Totally convenient, too, right?)
When the rich exercise the ridiculously convenient practice of either fasting or sharing a simple weekly meal of rice and beans to remember the poor—using our weekly savings to sponsor a child through Compassion International—children are released from poverty in Jesus’ name.
When the rich decide to forgo traveling sports leagues for six-year-olds, the poor (and rich) are less likely to suffer from our pollution and the ones who live near us are more likely to find us playing in our yards.
When the affluent decide to kick our pricey oral addictions to tasty food and drink we don’t really need, resources are freed up to keep some protein-rich peanut butter in the car to share with those we meet who are in need.

Help Launch LTHF!!!!!!

2012-01-04T08:00:00.000-05:00

Dear friends,

To help get Let Them Have Faces off the ground, we are doing a campaign on IndieGoGo. Click here and help launch LTHF!

We are raising $5000 in 60 days
and can only do it with your help!

Funds will go towards an event that we have planned in April and will allow us to get some of the start-up work done - including a new website and some products for our partner organizations.

You can also give through the New Horizons Foundation here.

Help s pread the word about LTHF. Together can we bring awareness, education and advocacy for victims of violence in our communities!

Virginity Tests

2011-12-27T16:18:00.000-05:00

Egyptian courts have made it illegal for military prisons to conduct "virginity" tests on their female inmates The BBC reports.The decision comes after a female protester accused the army of forcing her to undergo said test when she was arrested earlier this year.

"(A)n Egyptian general was quoted as acknowledging that the military had conducted such tests, saying that they were used so women would not later claim they had been raped by authorities (BBC)."

Human rights groups say it is a form of abuse and has often been used a form of punishment.

Amnesty International reports that, "women protesters that they were beaten, given electric shocks, subjected to strip searches while being photographed by male soldiers, then forced to submit to ‘virginity checks’ and threatened with prostitution charges" (AI)."

AI goes on to say that, "Its purpose is to degrade women because they are women."

Here is a video from CNN on the story:

Connectedness

2011-12-05T15:54:00.001-05:00

Eve Ensler spoke at Ted lastyear. I will admit I don't know that much about Ensler but found her talk fascinating. Best known for her bookVagina Monologues, Ensler speaks about connectedness. Connectedness to each other, our planet and to the devastation around us.

At one point she says,"Then I went somewhere else. I went outside what I thought I knew. I wentto the Democratic Republic of Congo. And I heard stories that shattered all theother stories. I heard stories that got inside my body…” Stories of horrificrape, of girls forever scarred and wounded from what happened to them.

“There are thousands of thesestories, and many of the women had holes in their bodies -- holes, fistula --that were the violation of war -- holes in the fabric of their souls. Thesestories saturated my cells and nerves, and to be honest, I stopped sleeping forthree years. All the stories began to bleed together. The raping of the Earth,the pillaging of minerals, the destruction of vaginas -- none of these wereseparate anymore from each other or me. Militias were raping six-month-oldbabies so that countries far away could get access to gold and coltan for theiriPhones and computers. My body had not only become a driven machine, but it wasresponsible now for destroying other women's bodies in its mad quest to make moremachines to support the speed and efficiency of my machine.”

Connectedness. The stories of sisters suffering around the world, in part because of the goods we buy, left Ensler scarred. It leaves me grappling and wounded too. I wish I didn't know what I do, but we cannot escape the reality around us. So, Ensler started V-Day, an organization that demands the end of violence against women and children.

If we are connected to the earth. If we are connected to the tragedies around the world. If we are connected to and take responsibility for our greed that breeds destruction in other places. If we realize our common movement within humanity - then what is our response? What do we do for the women in The Congo, crying out from the violation of their land and of their bodies?

No easy answers come, but then again nothing worth doing is easy.

There are no easy answers.
Anyone who tells you differently is selling something.

Connected - joined or fastened together. Our actions, our decisions, our words, our action (or inaction) affect each other.

Awareness - We are connected to each other.

Education - How we spend our revenue affects women worlds away,

it can bring destruction or it can bring restoration.

Advocacy - Use your influence to tell others.

How can you bring connectedness to your world; to those around you in your family, community, society and to the larger universe in general?

- -

Little Lolita - the misunderstood rape victim

2011-11-18T13:05:00.001-05:00

Let me paint you a story: a man marries a woman so he can have access to her 12 year old daughter. This is a girl he has seen around town and has been fascinated with for a while. She is not the first young girl who has caught his eye. It is not the first young girl whose life he has forced his way into. Once he is in the home, he makes passes at this girl, sexual advances, while her mother is around. The mother dies. And this man, now the sole guardian of this girl, steals her away from hotel to hotel, raping her daily.

He documents the entire affair in elaborate detail. Writing about the girl's pleas for help, attempts to get away, reaction to being raped, etc. as if she is toying with him, he views himself the victim. Her emotions are her playing hard to get. Her attempts to push him off during her rape are a twisted form a foreplay. He passes off scratches on his body as a wild night. She tries to bring other people into the situation to make the rape stop and he pulls her to a new location.

Through the constant movement, he has now isolated the girl from everyone and everything. No one knows who she is or what is happening. He portrays them on a father - daughter trip, paints her off as a moody teenager and attempts to keep his actions from getting out.

As time goes on, he starts to complain. He is growing tired of her, she is getting too old, and so this man contemplates impregnating her so he will have someone else to abuse when he is done with his current victim.

Now, imagine that instead of hearing all of this and feeling disgust - people look on this man with pity. How dare the young girl toy with him, how dare she play with his emotions and lead him down this emotional roller coaster! People say she wanted it and she is responsible for his anguish. This story is painted as a love story, and the 12 year old victim becomes a 12 year old vixen who was really in control of her years of being raped by an older man.

Sounds impossible? It's not. It's the plot of one of the most read stories of all time.

I first read Lolita right after college. Being that I'd been in the anti-trafficking, stop violence towards women, end sexual assault movement for years even then, I was shocked that a book like this was able to be considered a "classic" and hailed as a love story.

There is nothing loving about the rape of a twelve year old girl.

Lolita - a girl who is kidnapped and raped by a man who came into her life as a stepfather figure, for three years.
Lolita - a girl whose name has become equated with "a sexually precocious, flirtatious underage girl who invites the attention of older men despite her young age. A Lolita now implies a young girl who is sexy, despite her pigtails and lollipops, and who teases men even though she is supposed to be off-limits." (Koa Beck)
Lolita - a girl's story that is misunderstood, like so many other child abuse victims, for reasons that place responsibility on her instead of her abuser - Humbert Humbert.

The story, written from Humbert's perspective, is essentially the ramblings of a pedophile who cannot see that what he is doing is wrong. The title of the book: Lolita, his pet name for Dolores Haze (Lolita's real name) means he refuses to see her for who she really is.

Everything "Lolita" has become associated with is everything that is wrong with the story. The lack of disgust to the story only reveals how twisted the story is. Humbert is never held responsible for his actions, he is not painted as a pedophile/rapist, but a lovestruck man tricked by a 12 year old girl.

Dolores is 12 - and is in no way responsible for what Humbert raped her. No child can seduce an adult. Instead of being hailed as "the only convincing love story of our century. (Vanity Fair)," this book should be looked at as a rare glimpse into the mind of a pedophile and the lies that keep them going.

"Because the lecherous Humbert has couched his pedophilia in romantic language, the young girl he repeatedly violated seems to have passed through into pop culture as a tween temptress rather than a rape victim.Conflating love or sexiness with the rape of literature’s most misunderstood child is dangerous in that it perpetuates the mythology that young girls are some how participating in their own violation. That they are instigating these attacks by encouraging and inciting the lust of men with their flirty demeanor and child-like innocence. (Koa Beck)

Lolita - the 1 year old rape victim the world blamed and forgot. And she isn't the only one. (1, 2, 3, 4)

It Starts with Education

2011-11-15T12:10:00.001-05:00

Here at LTHF we start with three basic ideas: awareness, education and advocacy.

It has to work in that order. To find out about something and become a voice for it, with no real idea of what is happening, the core problems or what is already being done, is detrimental. Too often new initiatives get started because a) someone did not want to work under someone else's plan; or b) they did not take the time to find out what was already being done.

You have to tell someone about what is going on:

There are domestic victims of human trafficking (a lot of them!)

Before someone goes to purchase a child overseas they are abusing a child at home.

Then you educate, you talk about stats, how it happens, responses, prevention, who the authorities on the subject are. Give people resources. Pull them into a dialogue about the topic. This can be done (rudimentary) in one meeting. But it should be a discussion over time. Don't just parrot a stance to someone, help them make it theirs and let them figure out how to spread the word.

In Denver, there are an average of 225 arrests a year of minors being prostituted

The average age is 12 - 14

A third of all runaways are pulled into prostitution within the first 48 hours

How we can classify 17-year-olds being prostituted as victims and 18-year-olds being prostituted a criminals is unreasonable and unfair. If she has been abused since she was 12 - how can she go from being a victim to a criminal in one day?

Then you tell them how they can respond. How they can get connected. Most people are not called to move overseas and start their own NGO. Some are, but there is a lot of preparation and humility that goes with that. There are resources helping victims in your area you can get connected to.

Give shoes or other supplies

Donate time or money

Speak out for better legislation

This is what you can do to help a victim of violence. It is so small - a pair of shoes, and yet it can have a profound effect. It's a pair of shoes - and it can be given without a second thought. But to know - to be made aware of the problem, educated to what is happening and given ways to assist - to be fully aware of what this seemingly small donation can do - makes the giving of shoes that much sweeter and better for all involved.

All of these shoes will grace the feet of survivors of violence and help them start their path of (hopefully) healthy healing. All were donated by people in the community!

speaking engagement

2011-11-11T16:59:00.001-05:00

I am speaking tomorrow at an organization here in town. Please pray it goes well and that I am able to speak coherently and say what this group needs to hear.

Pray that we are able to collect what we need and that this is the first of many meetings with the people there.

Will update on Monday!

Until then, this is one of the best responses I've read to the Penn State scandal. From Love146.

(excerpt)

...McQueary acted the coward and failed. Real men protect children. Matt Millen, ESPN Commentator and Penn State star friendly with all of the men involved, broke down and wept on the radio. He said this …

“… This is more than a football legacy. This is about people and if we can’t protect our kids, we as a society are pathetic.”

...This is exactly the sort of thing men say: that the failure to protect women and children is inexcusable. But often later, when we sit down with our Task Force groups, volunteers who have joined us on the front lines of the fight against the exploitation of children, most of the angry men are absent. It seems that often men filled with righteous indignation and courage at the Love146 table in a church lobby or on a talk radio show, become a radical minority when it comes to the actual work of justice. A quick survey of Love146 Task Forces suggests that women out number men 5-1!

Winter Needs

2011-11-09T12:13:00.001-05:00

The weather is changing. Things are getting colder. And so with the changing of seasons our needs change too.

For the winter we are looking for:

Closed-Toed Shoes - ballet flats, tennis shoes, etc.
Socks
Sports Bras
T-Shirts and Sweatshirts

I am also looking for someone who could help with website design. I don't know enough to really be able to do what I would like to do. If you know of someone contact me.

If you are in the Colorado area and are interested in hosting a Her Shoes event, please let me know.

Blessings friends,
Manda

Abuse and Power

2011-11-07T12:45:00.004-05:00

Penn State's ex-defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was arrested over the weekend on sex abuse allegations.

GMA reported on the story this morning.

As USAToday reported, two university officials resigned over the weekend because they helped to cover up the abuse.

The gist is this:

Sandusky, 67, faces 40 abuse charges, including 21 felonies. Sandusky ... is charged with abusing eight boys between 1994 and 2009, with some incidents said to have taken place in a Penn State athletics building. (USAToday)

There were reports going back to 2002 and the university did nothing. They kept him in contact with kids. If the mothers had not brought it to light, he would still be a free man.

Bonhoeffer once said: The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.

In this case, the officials of Penn State told the eight boys Sandusky abused that they were worth less than a sport's program. They said, by their decision to bury things, to protect their abuser and to cover up what he had done, that winning is more important than justice, that actions have no consequences if the abuser is powerful. The first case of abuse goes back seventeen years - that boy is now a young man and so has had to deal with the weight, shame, etc. of abuse while the man who abused him went on being powerful and rich, important, etc. all because of a game.

I wish I could say this doesn't happen more. I wish I thought Sandusky was a exception, but I think too often the voice of the young, the marginalized, those we can cast aside for any reason, are silenced for really arbitrary, stupid, and shameful things.

Children & Exposure to Violence

2011-11-04T13:04:00.002-04:00

"More than one in four children in the United States has been exposed to physical violence between their parents at home at some time in their lives, and one in nine has been exposed to this type of violence within the past year, a new study says." (U.S. News)

The Alabama Coalition Against Domestic Violence listed some of the effects of exposure, including: shame, guilt and blame, anger, acting out or withdrawing, refusing to go to school, lying, manipulation, isolation from friends and family, poor anger management, short attention spans, tried, poor hygiene, and self abuse. For a complete list go here.

Exposure, according to U.S. News includes: hearing it, being told about it, seeing the consequences, or actually seeing it (2011).

It is imperative that more is done to educate those connected to the children - extended family, babysitters, educators, counselors, doctors, etc. - to know the signs and what to do. If just hearing abuse is enough to affect a child, we all have to become educated and be there for children. Too often we pass children off, coming up with other excuses for what is happening. We blame their reactions on other things, they get labeled a "problem child" when really they could be reacting to violence in their life.

The Poor

2011-11-02T10:32:00.001-04:00

"The poor are the center of the Church. But who are the poor? At first we might think of people who are not like us: people who live in slums, people who go to soup kitchens, people who sleep on the streets, people in prisons, mental hospitals, and nursing homes. But the poor can be very close. They can be in our own families, churches or workplaces. Even closer, the poor can be ourselves, who feel unloved, rejected, ignored, or abused.

It is precisely when we see and experience poverty - whether far away, close by, or in our own hearts - that we need to become the Church; that is, hold hands as brothers and sisters, confess our own brokenness and need, forgive one another, heal one another's wounds, and gather around the table of Jesus for the breaking of the bread. Thus, as the poor we recognise Jesus, who became poor for us."

~ Henri Nouwen

Poverty has nothing to do with wealth.

Let me say that again, POVERTY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WEALTH.

Wess Stafford the president of Compassion says that the opposite of poverty is not wealth, the opposite of poverty is enough.

You can have all the money in the world and still be poor. You can have nothing and be wealthy beyond compare.

I have met some incredibly powerful people who are playing a role. They pretend to be outgoing, that life is wonderful, that things are amazing - but behind their eyes there is pain. I have sat with some people who seemingly only have what is on their back and they are full of joy and laughter and contentment. I have sat by myself and felt peace and joy, I have sat with those who love me and felt totally alone.

It is not until we can get beyond this idea that wealth is somehow associated with stuff or success or marriage or children - that we can begin to see that poverty and wealth lies in relationships between each other, in worship of God, in living a life outside of yourself. If we could get beyond the superficial and the external, if the Church could move beyond the need to play "perfect" and therefore shun whoever does not "conform" to this idea, then we could actually make strides to being the Church.

Until we can admit and sit with our own poverty, we will be ineffective to truly helping others or being open to how God would use us.

It is not a destination, but a continued journey. One we must make together, one we can only make when it stops being about us and starts being about Him.

What did this quote bring to your mind?

Update!

2011-10-12T15:04:00.003-04:00

Progress has been made!

We are ALMOST ready to file the Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws with the State. I need to review them one more time, get in touch with potential board members and ensure that the business plan I am developing falls in-line with what we are filing.

It is a time of definition. A time to say what LTHF will stand for, and how that will be accomplished.

I am excited. Once we are registered, we can get a business (and wholesale) license and then move to 501c3 status.

Thank you for your continued encouragement. I am excited for the stage to be behind us.

Take care friends!

2011-10-06T11:45:00.002-04:00

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. ... If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on." (Steve Jobs)

That is my hope with LTHF - to tap into that creativity and find joy in what I do. Figure out what makes your eyes light up when you talk about it and pursue that. Don't let anyone or anything tell you you cannot do what you want. The world needs more people like Steve Jobs in it, people willing to do what others say can't be done.

What makes your hear race? What makes you leap with joy? Do that and everything else will fall into place.

Language

2011-09-01T11:22:00.001-04:00

The difference between "child prostitute" and "prostituted child" might seem minor, but it can make all the difference

Registration

2011-07-14T17:36:00.001-04:00

We are starting the process to register Let Them Have Faces (and thereby Her Shoes) as an NGO!

This is very exciting and a huge answer to prayer. God is good and has seemingly brought the right people into my life for this moment. I will keep you updated as we move forward.

My days are consumed with bylaws and business plans as I work forty hours and go to school. It is amazingly busy but I love it!

Would appreciate your prayers, wisdom and contacts if you have any.

Love friends.

No Playboy Club

2011-07-01T13:14:00.001-04:00

NBC has a new series coming this fall. The Playboy Club - about Playboy in the 1960s. Some are (rightly!) not okay with the idea as Fox reports.

“What’s shown in 'The Playboy Club' is not real—Playboy definitely damages people. It’s pornography, it’s sex trafficking and it exploits women,” the founder of Pink Cross, ex porn actress Shelley Lubben, tells FOX411.com. “The series looks like it’s all cute, taking place back in the old days—it seems harmless, but then they show a quick clip of three people going at it in the bathroom. NBC is breaking the law with this show—they’re not meeting FCC standards.”
...
“We’re launching a big effort with our web site, closetheclubonnbc.com,” Dawn Hawkins, executive director, Morality In Media, tells FOX411.com. “We’re asking supporters to sign the pledge to and to contact their local NBC affiliates and ask them not to air the show. And as soon as we discover who is sponsoring the show, we’ll ask our supporters to contact them as well.”

Hawkins charges that “The Playboy Club” glamorizes pornography. “We know now, years later, that pornography is very harmful to society. It leads to addiction in children and adults, increased sex trafficking violence against women—and 'Playboy' is really the root of all of this. We just don’t want to see it glamorized any further, which it will be if it’s aired on NBC.”

CSE Stats and The Village Voice

2011-06-30T13:50:00.001-04:00

The Village Voice recently published this very belligerent article.

Taking on the stat that, "Between 100,000 and 300,000 child sex slaves in the United States today..." VV researched juvenile prostitution arrest records for the 37 largest cities in the America. Their findings:

Law enforcement records show that there were only 8,263 arrests across America for child prostitution during the most recent decade.

That's 827 arrests per year.

Some cities, such as Salt Lake City and Orlando, go an entire year without busting a child prostitute. Others, such as Las Vegas, arrest or recover 100 or so per year.

Compare 827 annually with the 100,000 to 300,000 per year touted in the propaganda.

Several problems with this.

1. Most cases of children being sold are not reported (like most rapes, domestic violence or child abuse cases)

2. Sometime the child is not charged with prostitution.

3. Arrest records are not a viable source for getting a full and accurate account of any crime (see #1).

4. Most people wouldn't be able to ID child exploitation. It is dark and hard to describe, and even harder to detect. And what if the person exploiting them is a parent? Lots of things happen at home people don't know about.

It is an incredibly ignorant article from an organization that sells adult service ads - meaning they have a reason to discredit those fighting to stop six year olds from being sold for sex.

We really have to debate this?

The stat should read: an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 children in the U.S. are at-risk for commercial sexual exploitation. The truth is we don't know how many children out there are being sold, raped, exploited.

But word choice is enough for VV to attack an entire industry and discredit the work of 100s of organizations. They seemingly have an answer for each "statement" by taking those words out of context and offering paper thin, patronizing, cocky comments back.

They do point to the need for funding for programs helping girls who have left the trade. And I will give them that. Funding in miniscule for those working with victims (especially domestic).

The problem with estimates (and that is all it is - an estimate!) Is they are hard to prove. It is an educated guess based on data, trends, and history. Also, you can find anyone to prove or disprove an estimate.

The exploitation of children is growing in this country. It masks itself in clever ways and is hidden. Organizations like VV do nothing but make it harder to get good stats, and more importantly stop, because of their off-base insulting writing (I won't call it journalism!).

A friend of mine put it this way (emphasis added):

Really there is only one estimate the authors are out to discredit: the Estes and Weiner estimate that 100,000 to 300,000 children in the U.S. are at-risk of commercial sexual exploitation. The authors expose the flimsiness of this one estimate, and show how it is often misrepresented -- with the aim of repudiating efforts of activists to combat sexual trafficking of minors in the U.S.

I'm not a fan of this estimate either (but sadly that's all that's been available).And, true, the article's authors have a point in that many people misuse this number by saying that there are 100,000 to 300,000 actual child victims of sexual trafficking in the U.S. Such a statement simply cannot be verified and held to be accurate. So, yes, Cizmar, Conklin, and Hinman have a point -- some anti-trafficking advocates recklessly overstate their case.

Yet, in mocking and acrid tones the authors take aim from everyone to Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, to Linda Smith of Shared Hope, to World Relief. How strange there's no discussion of the left-of-center organizations that get federal funding to do similar work in the U.S. Thus, one can surmise that VV is cherry picking it's moguls of the alleged child-trafficking panic.

So, what merit is there in this article?: 1) Yes, anti-trafficking estimates/statistics are generally unreliable and, sadly, often overstated. 2) Yes, the "Real Men Don't Buy Girls" Campaign is ill-conceived -- regrettably so much so that it debases the very cause it was developed to champion. 3) Yes, there is woefully inadequate funding for programs to provide shelter for trafficked persons --- be they children or adults (not that the authors ever mention human trafficking of adults). 4) Yes, we all need to work harder to provide reliable information and to ensure we are doing the best we can with the resources made available -- be they from federal or other sources.

What is trash about this article?: 1) VV purports to be so concerned about reliable estimates, yet they fail to call for more research and more investment in the resources to get reliable numbers. 2) VV picked a select handful of anti-trafficking personalities/organizations to cast as hopelessly ill-informed and/or as religious zealots -- ones that were easy targets and that suited the political tastes of their primary readership. 3) The take away point of this piece is that domestic minor sex trafficking is just a ruse many people are using to obtain federal funds, thus the rest of us on the bandwagon are their dupes hopelessly wasting our time and precious federal resources. 4) The notion that in all the frenzy no one is taking care of the victims. 5) The idea that arrests of prostituted children give a close approximation to the real status of how many children are being prostituted.

In the end, the VV article was the same kind of crap they accuse Kutcher and Moore of putting out for the other side. And let's not forget, the get lots of money from their adult services section, something that severely discredits them and makes them less that willing to be objective on this issue.

Alcohol and S.A.

2011-06-27T10:59:00.000-04:00

“Using alcohol to facilitate sexual activity is ingrained in our culture, ... Society reacts to say, ‘Well, that’s not a sexual assault because if it is, that means that I’m a rapist or my friend’s a rapist… or that’s happened to me and I’m not ready to acknowledge that I was sexually assaulted.”

Mike Domitrz Date Safe Project

(link)

Rape in the Holocaust

2011-06-24T11:06:00.000-04:00

CNN recently ran this article on the untold stories of rape during the Holocaust.

Silence lifted: The untold stories of rape during the Holocaust (edited)

... (T)his brutal testimony reaches back more than 65 years to the Holocaust -- more than half a century before the United Nations declared rape a war crime. ...

Is that because victims didn't share these accounts? Did interviewers not ask the right questions? Or have influences -- both within academia and the Jewish community -- served to sweep such accounts under the historical rug? ...

But the topic of sexual violence during the Holocaust is fraught with controversy. Some observers believe it's a subject not sufficiently widespread or proven to warrant broad attention. Others fear it's driven by a microscopic view that deflects focus from what needs to be remembered. And still others feel that by pushing the issue, it may harm survivors who've suffered enough. …

But while rape is undoubtedly significant for those who are victimized, "the historical significance is very small in the context of the Holocaust experience," Langer (Lawrence L. Langer, a preeminent Holocaust scholar) says. "To make rape a significant part of the narrative, the numbers would have to be in the thousands or tens of thousands. We will never know how often it happened."

Myrna Goldenberg, another scholar and author, agrees that stories of rape need to be contextualized and that their scope shouldn't be exaggerated. "We have to keep saying that this was still not the norm. This was not the Holocaust. It was the murder of Jews that was the Holocaust," she says. "But to assume the subject is untouchable is wrong. Women were tortured and raped. Breasts were cut off. How do you not talk about that? How do you not acknowledge that?"

(Lenore Weitzman) estimates that "less than a fraction of 1% of Jewish women" were raped.” … Assuming rape was common "taints all women survivors," Weitzman says. "It is not that they don't want to discuss something that was painful, it is that they do not want to be branded by something that did not happen -- not to them or to their sisters or to their mothers or to their daughters. The real horrors they experienced were horrible enough." ...

"Perhaps we would have been better able to prevent the rapes in the former Yugoslavia and the Congo if we had not had to wait more than 60 years to hear the truths that are anthologized in 'Sexual Violence against Jewish Women during the Holocaust,' " Gloria Steinem, pioneering feminist writer and organizer, wrote… (link)

1% isn’t worth talking about? Let’s say, of the 6,000,000 people who were killed in the Holocaust – half were women. One percent of 3,000,000 is 30,000 and that doesn’t include the women (and girls and boys) who survived. Also, most times rapes are vastly underreported. And even more so in the Holocaust (like any other war), so you could move that up a few percentages.

So, the sexual assault of 30,000+ people isn’t worth talking about?

At one point Langer goes on to say that in the 25 years he has been doing interviews no one has mentioned rape.

Well there are a lot of reasons for that. The Jewish culture is one of deep shame. Often times rape is seen a disgracing the entire family. Also most rapes are not reported, even in the general population. Langer asked survivors, “What is the worst thing that happened to you?” And no one mentioned rape. Well, in light of the Holocaust, I think losing your family, your culture, living in the camps, etc. would all compound into something too hard to discuss. Most rape victims won’t come forward with their stories. They want to forget. If we look at the culture of rape in general – we can see why this hasn’t be discussed until now.
Many rape victims feel deep shames and guilt, often times thinking they did something. They want to move on and forget. That is why they don’t seek help and legal avenues, it’s too hard, they want to suppress. With the Holocaust I think there is a lot of just wanting to forget, having survivor’s guilt, and there might not have been words for what happened
Also, we’re talking about the 1940’s – a very quiet, conservative time in our world. It wasn’t appropriate to talk about “such things” and for that generation, it’s still not.

I think acknowledging and discussing what happened for the 30,000+ girls, women and boys who lived it is worth it.

The idea that people are going to assume every Jewish woman who survived the Holocaust was raped is absurd! Most people don’t assume every woman in the Congo is raped, or Rwanda, or Libya – but for the ones who were it is worth discussing and getting out there. Handle it was care, preserve the survivor’s dignity, but get the truth out there.

Here are some other stories the article linked to:

Rwandan Minister Jailed for genocide and rape counts (The Minster was a woman)
Libyan repels use cell phone to capture rapes.
Stories of rape from Syria.
Lara Logan's story from her attack in Egypt.

Listening to victims of rape in wartime -- another very well written article on the topic, and also why rape is not something survivors of genocide/war talk about.

Rape in Libya

2011-06-14T16:04:00.001-04:00

As the violence in Libya continues, a new horror has begun. As the BBC reported, victims of rape who become pregnant could be killed in "honor killings." It is yet another example of victims being the only ones seen as participating in rape. There is no revenge against the rapist. If a woman was raped, she should not be the one held accountable for the act.

It leaves the stigma that the entire village has been raped, so why doesn't the whole village seek justice for the rapist instead of punishing the victim?

Victim blame furthers the tendency for society to hold girls accountable for the actions of men, with no shame or reprisal against the man who raped her. There needs to be a loud message sent that it is not okay for this to happen. Rape is never ok, and in a society where women are silenced anyway, this further leads to shame and silence with no support or justice for the victim.

"The International Criminal Court says it believes Col Gaddafi's forces are using rape as a weapon of war. The ICC says it has reason to believe orders to rape were given, and the drug Viagra was distributed to fighters. ... "The order to rape was not given to the regular army," says the major, who did not want his name to be used, because his family is still in Tripoli. "Col Gaddafi knew we would never accept it. It was given to the mercenaries." (BBC)

2011-05-24T10:42:00.001-04:00

I'm a guest blogger today: http://bloggingwithamy.com/ultimate-blog-swap/.

Then head over to my other blog (http://dillonbailey.blogspot.com/) for a post from elizabeth.

Slut Walks?

2011-05-16T11:40:00.001-04:00

We all have things we wish we could take back saying. For Constable Michael Sanguinetti of the Toronto police department, I bet it's the comment that, "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised."

Constable Sanguinetti is voicing an opinion that is (unfortunately) often held. He is not the first to say it. But it has now sparked dozens of protests around the world of women walking around in bras and jeans (like "sluts") to fight the idea that how a woman dresses is justification for her getting assaulted.

Good point.

Unfortunately, it misses thea mark.

Jenny McCartney (not McCarthy) of The Telegraph, wrote a very interesting piece asking if these "Slut Walks" aren't a step backwards.

This is the point, surely: that "slut" – or its global equivalents – is not a category that conforms to clothing choice: it is an insult that can be flung at any woman the moment she triggers desire, anger or disapproval. ... A "slut" looks like whatever a misogynist wants her to look like. I am familiar with arguments about "reclaiming the word", but why reclaim something you don't want? (emphasis added)

She goes on to point out that, the walks, "do not engage with the wider way in which a hyper-sexualised society is sending out dangerously mixed signals, to young men and women alike."

We tell girls to look like tramps. And while I am all for women being able to dress how they want, and I don't give a poo about what she was wearing or doing - it is never justification for rape or assault, I have to question if there isn't a double standard in these walks. So women want the right to dress like sluts, which is very often done to gain male attention, but then want to get upset when a guy does what she is dressing for him to do? Sluts dress to become an object, and these women are fighting for the right to do that. Or maybe I've missed something.

I am one of the biggest advocates for women's safety and the right not to be raped. Having worked with, and on behalf of, sexual assault victims for years - I can tell you there is no justification for what is done to them. Yet, there has to be accountability on both sides. We are all ultimately responsible for our actions. But you cannot use your sexuality to gain control and then get upset when that toying leads to consequences. How can these feminists (of which I am not one) march for equality saying they don't want their form to be an issue, and yet demand the right to flaunt it and have it celebrated?

I don't want the term "slut" applied to women. Like McCartney pointed out, it is linked to negative ideas and images and does not bring about the equality I think these women are striving for. Women should not be sluts, and that is exactly what society is telling them to be. It's like people who use the term pimp as if it's a good thing - someone who protects you - um, yeah -- no. Pimp = control, abuse, exploitation, enslavement, etc. And slut has the same connotations. It is used by men to justify abuse. Why are women trying to reclaim this word?

"I have a feeling that clumsy Constable Sanguinetti – if one overlooks his stupid use of words – might have been trying to hint at precisely this. Girls shouldn't be cheered on to be "sluts", but encouraged just to be themselves. The trouble is that, as the pressure on them increases, it gets harder to know what that looks like. (link)"

Playground

2011-04-18T16:46:00.000-04:00

There is an amazing video on Nest Foundation's website on the pandemic of domestic human trafficking that is currently going on in America.

I cannot embed it - but please go to this link and watch.

...Playground...

Time Out

2011-03-31T08:58:00.002-04:00

I will be gone until 13 April. At which time I will return with a new adventure and some new ponderings.

Stay tuned..

Good news for the Affluent ?

2011-03-21T14:19:00.000-04:00

Margot Starbuck over at Red Letter Christians put out this list that really hit home for me.

Ten ways the gospel that is—obviously—good news for the poor is actually also good news for those of us who are affluent….

When the rich eat less extraneous food and get healthier, faithfully stewarding our excess resources—to Blood:Water Mission—the poor eat enough and get healthier.
When the rich skip an episode of Desperate Housewives, besides gaining an extra hour of life, the typically-induced envy and greed that ensue—the kinds that impact the lives of the poor who make our stuff—is squelched.
When those of us who are affluent limit our requisite shopping errands to one day a week, we’re liberated from the exhausting obsessive consumption that drives us and we consume less of the resources which impact the lives of the poor.
When the rich take a refreshing Sabbath from facebook, we get an opportunity to connect with the ones God loves on the margins who aren’t on facebook.
When the rich make the time-consuming effort to get off of the catalogue mailing lists that jam our mailboxes, and overwhelm us before we even step in the door after work, fewer forests are stripped in developing countries.
When the rich knock out all of our birthday-gift shopping at one convenient Ten Thousand Villages fair-trade location, the poor earn a living wage.
Similarly, when the rich do our Christmas gift shopping by donating goats and chickens through World Vision, the poor gain a viable livelihood. (Totally convenient, too, right?)
When the rich exercise the ridiculously convenient practice of either fasting or sharing a simple weekly meal of rice and beans to remember the poor—using our weekly savings to sponsor a child through Compassion International—children are released from poverty in Jesus’ name.
When the rich decide to forgo traveling sports leagues for six-year-olds, the poor (and rich) are less likely to suffer from our pollution and the ones who live near us are more likely to find us playing in our yards.
When the affluent decide to kick our pricey oral addictions to tasty food and drink we don’t really need, resources are freed up to keep some protein-rich peanut butter in the car to share with those we meet who are in need.

What else could we add to this list? More and more, the decisions of the rich are being known for their impact on the poor. We really are all connected.

There could be one about when the affluent choose to keep the electronics longer, instead of always pursuing the new and best, the poor aren't enslaved in mines collecting minerals for that technology.

When the affluent start helping with a local organization helping their poor neighbor, it opens their eyes to the suffering of others around the world and how everyone in their neighbor.

When the affluent confront the lies and speak out against unnecessary sex and the objectification of women (the hyper-sexualization of young girls) in movies and on TV it drives down the demand for sexual services, thereby freeing more of the poor from a life of sexual trafficking.

What the affluent does matters. We are all connected...

Teens Online

2011-03-16T12:34:00.000-04:00

Microsoft polled 8,000 teens and parents about internet usage. Here are what they found out about teens:

Teens (14-18 years old):

67% of teens have cleared out their browser history or cache to make sure their parents couldn’t view their online activity. 31% do this “always” or “regularly.”
39% of teens admit to looking at websites or playing online games that their parents would likely disapprove of.
15% of teenagers allow all Internet users access to their information on social networks. 85% restrict access to only family and friends or use privacy settings to limit access in some way.
15% of children admitted they had communicated something on a social network that was intended to be hurtful or intimidating to another person.
44% have lied about their age when online.
75% have been contacted by a stranger. 37% of those who have been contacted responded to that stranger. Only 4% told someone older that they trusted, 10% were scared by it, and 11% were worried.
23% of teenagers would feel comfortable making friends with adults online
18% would feel comfortable revealing secrets online they would not ordinarily share.

So what does say? First, if 67% of teens are clearing out the history, they are doing something they don't want their parents to know about. It's as simple as that. You don't hide stuff if you are doing what you should.

The internet should be like every other area in a child's life - something their parent is engaged in. Some friends won't let their kids have a Facebook unless they keep their parent their friend. Others make their kids give them their password (I think that is a bit extreme unless you have a good reason to doubt your child.

Overall, "just over a third (36 per cent) of parents admit they do not monitor their children's online movements or internet postings. 26 per cent of parents do not take any action to limit or control their children's internet use at home." (cite)

The data was released in conjunction with Safer Internet Day (who knew!) on 8 February. "This year’s Safer Internet Day will focus on the theme “it’s not a game, it’s your life,” which will underscore the fact that whether children are entertaining themselves on social networking sites, sharing videos or pictures, or playing games online, the things they share and the things they say can have profound consequences." (cite)

Nigeria & Human Trafficking

2011-03-15T13:49:00.000-04:00

Nigerian Immigration service has updated their equipment to decrease the rate of human trafficking.

“I could tell when last and if you have ever travelled through our international airports in recent times, I will tell you the time and hour and the immigration officer that cleared you”.

Uzoma said the new facilities have enabled the NIS to now ensure that people no longer travel with forged documents, and that the era when people used their relatives’ passports to travel is now over. This, she explained, is because the installed machines can identify every individual and detect look-alike photographs on passports. Moreover, officers have been sensitised to the challenges of human trafficking and trained to tackle them, in order to shed the bad image which that illicit enterprise had given the country. (link)

If the services work, it could cut down on human trafficking. It would help with passports that are used repeatedly. I don't know if they could track persons who travel outside the country at the same times as a group of younger girls. It seems there would be a lot of possibilities for the technology. And, if Nigeria can afford and implement it, so can many, many other countries.

According to the 2010 TIP Report:

Nigeria is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically conditions of forced labor and forced prostitution. Trafficked Nigerian women and children are recruited from rural areas within the country’s borders − women and girls for involuntary domestic servitude and forced commercial sexual exploitation, and boys for forced labor in street vending, domestic servitude, mining, and begging. Nigerian women and children are taken from Nigeria to other West and Central African countries, primarily Gabon, Cameroon, Ghana, Chad, Benin, Togo, Niger, Burkina Faso, and The Gambia, for the same purposes. Children from West African states like Benin, Togo, and Ghana – where Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) rules allow for easy entry – are also forced to work in Nigeria, and some are subjected to hazardous jobs in Nigeria’s granite mines. Nigerian women and girls are taken to Europe, especially to Italy and Russia, and to the Middle East and North Africa, for forced prostitution. Traffickers sometimes move their victims to Europe by caravan, forcing them to cross the desert on foot, and subjecting them to forced prostitution to repay heavy debts for travel expenses. During the reporting period, Nigerian girls were repatriated from Libya and Morocco, where they were reportedly held captive in the commercial sex trade (link)

Nigeria is a Tier 1 country which, according to the definition, means the government has acknowledged the problem and is implementing proactive measures to address the issue. Beyond the technology, training of immigration officials is vital. I need to read more on ECOWAS to see how/if the new measures above apply to travel within those countries.

International Women's Day

2011-03-08T11:12:00.001-05:00

Today is International Women's Day. It is a chance to stop, think and reflect on what most of the women in the world go through to eek out an existence for their families and themselves.

If the stats of the number of women who are trafficked (80% of those trafficked, most for sexual exploitation), suffer physical abuse in their lifetime (a 1 in 4 to 1 in 3 depending on the area and study), face the repercussions of war, instability, lack of resources... The dualities between what is acceptable for men and women is heartbreaking. Education, freedom, access to health care, basic human right are still denied to women around the world.

Yet, most micro-finance recipients are women. Women are making strides into areas of government, business. They are breaking down barriers and refusing to be silenced in societies that do not know how to deal with them. It is proven that granting more access and choice to women betters a society.

I heard it said once that if you want to bring true change to a community, get the women involved. It's true. In areas of conflict, rebel armies will use rape as a way of breaking down the community because they know if they can shame the woman and separate her from her husband and children the community will splinter.

I've met really incredible women in my travels abroad. Women who are raising incredible families, finding a way to bring in income, going against ethnic and gender prejudice to do what comes naturally to them.

We life up Mother Teresa continually, and what she did was incredible. But, I think we have a world full of women like her, making a difference in impoverished communities, bring hope and dignity back to the suffering and the dying. But they do it in the course of their everyday life. They bring good news and education on HIV/AIDS, get water for their families, recover after immense sexual and physical (emotional, spiritual) abuse, still manage to dream of something better for their kids, and make incredible sacrifices and face immense persecution to see it happen. They raise families on their own with very little money, start businesses out of nothing. They love, are there, care for their kids, and work more hours than most people think is humanly possible.

Survivors. I am painting with a wide brush and I can recognize that. But you want to find an honest definition of "survivor" look at most women and you will find incredible strength, endurance, resourcefulness and grace. In the U.S. and across the world women have made great strides in equality and reclaiming their value and voice.

I think most times men keep women down out of fear. We are a mighty force and once that is unleashed no society is the same!

Women were not granted the right to vote until the 1920's. Now, 90 years later, I would charge that it is our responsibility to first understand what our ancestors went through to give us a right most take for granted and start the process of breaking down the wall that kept most of our society a "man's world." Then we need to care and stand alongside our sisters around the world (and the U.S.) who are denied basic human rights and the ability to even dream about what so many women take for granted in the U.S. - the rights to dream, to be, to live a life without fear of rape or injury, to be treated with dignity and equality, to be educated, to raise our kids in stability and safety...

Purpose

2011-02-23T11:54:00.000-05:00

Why do you write? Why do I write this blog? It's a question that has been on my mind for the last few months as I struggle to maintain this.

I started this blog to interact with current events. I would love to keep doing that, but need to do so in an educated and intentional way.

This has fallen by the wayside and for that I apologize. I think at most, I would be able to update once or twice a week - and maybe that just has to be good enough.

I am about to start some work that is exciting to me and would fit well with the mission of this blog which is to raise awareness, educate, and promote advocacy.

More to come...

Take that Ken!

2011-01-14T11:31:00.000-05:00

Pretty crazy...

Cooper, Cameron and End Times

2011-01-06T13:38:00.000-05:00

Anderson Cooper had Kirk Cameron on to discuss the mysterious bird deaths in Arkansas last week and End Times. No, no you did not read that wrong.

Here is the interview:

(link: http://crooksandliars.com/heather/anderson-cooper-brings-left-behind-actor-c)

Thanks to Unreasonable Faith for the link.

“Prostituting” Needs

2010-12-28T15:18:00.001-05:00

The following was printed by Tony Campolo at Red Letter Christian before Christmas. I just read it today and thought it was something worth reprinting. One quick highlight from Chris' article:

I was recently with some friends who are deeply concerned about issues of poverty. They were telling me about the glossy catalogues of human need that turn things like freedom into formulas as advertising jingles, "for only $35 you can help get a Cambodian woman out of a brothel."

But when we step back and evaluate these kinds of giving opportunities I'm not so sure they aren't creating new forms of exploitation and new kinds of commodification. It's tragic enough that a person's sexuality has been reduced to something that can be bought and sold, and now to turn their freedom into a commodity as well seems to further diminish their humanity.

Stop “Prostituting” Needs

By Tony Campolo

Within our world no form of modern slavery may be greater than that of human sex trafficking. A good friend of mine, and fellow Red Letter Christian, Chris Heuertz, international director of Word Made Flesh, has spent his life working to free women from forced prostitution and to make others aware that human sex trafficking is as rampant now as ever.

In 2010 it was estimated that the human sex trafficking industry included as many as 27 million victims and brought in roughly $32 billion per year. If these numbers do not signify that we have a problem on our hands, a problem that many of us have never heard of or have never taken seriously, then I don’t know what will.

The question naturally becomes: so what can I do to help put an end to such violence and exploitation? Chris Heuertz’s recent article in the Washington Post addresses this very question. Is it enough to simply give money to an organization and let them do the work? A deeper question though is whether giving money in an effort to “free” an individual from forced slavery is the proper way to go about the task. This is the question Chris addresses in most depth.

I implore you to read Chris’ article and think about the ways in which money can be helpful to ministries yet may also exploit those individuals some ministries seek to assist. It’s an article you may need to read more than once, taking time to reflect on certain statements and the message Chris is preaching.

(Site, Chris's Article)

Product Placement

2010-12-20T12:01:00.001-05:00

Somethings are just too good not to share. Guaranteed to make you smile.

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Soap Opera Product Placement

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog</a>

March to Keep Fear Alive

(link: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/366879/november-30-2010/soap-opera-product-placement)

A Better Workplace

2010-12-17T11:37:00.000-05:00

Perry Noble wrote 11 Ways a Leader can Serve the People They Work With.

I would take the list and just call it - a way we can call make the workplace a better place to be! Here is the list (emphasis added) from Perry's blog:

#1 – Adopt the mindset that these people work with me and not for me.

#2 – Provide enough margin for the people who serve with you to be creative and brainstorm ahead.

#3 – Make sure that the people you serve with have the resources they need to do the job they are expected to do.

#4 – Say “thank you” and “great job” A LOT instead of just pointing out all of the areas where a person came up short.

#5 – Try your best to make sure that if an area of the church is going to be impacted by a certain decision that someone from that area had input in the decision making process. (Learned this one from Andy Stanley.)

#6 – Make sure the expectations for the people you lead are both spoken and realistic. (We cannot hold people accountable for unspoken, unrealistic expectations.)

#7 – Don’t confuse personal preferences with conviction from the Holy Spirit…if you tell the people you serve with that “God told me” then you had better be willing to bet your last Bible than you heard from the Lord!

#8 – Model what you consider to be important…in other words, when you are walking into the building and see a piece of trash on the ground…pick it up.

#9 – Listen to them!!!

#10 – Understand that your words weight 1,000 pounds…choose them carefully!

#11 – Understand that WHAT you say and HOW you say it matter…the people you serve with are human beings with hearts, minds and souls…they deserve to be treated as such.

Joy of Vocation

2010-12-15T10:29:00.000-05:00

I apologize for the lack of blogging, hoping to get into a routine again here soon.

My friend posted this on his blog today. Thought it was worth the reprint (thanks Brad!), emphasis added.

Do you love what you do?

Do you enjoy your job, or are you just enduring it?

Is the greatest intent of your week to only get to the weekend? Or to suffer until the next vacation day?

Is what you do an extension of who you are?

If someone told you that you have to quit your “job” tomorrow, would you be relieved or disappointed?

Many folks go through life simply enduring what they do, instead of loving what they do. Not all of career life is glamorous, or constantly fires us up. I get that. Some things you just have to put up with and endure. But if you daily dread getting out of bed and diving in to your occupation, to your career, to your vocation, then something has to change. It’s not worth it.

Don’t settle for just going through life enduring the 5 days of the workweek, to only have as your greatest goal of the week to make it to the weekend.

Love what you do, or at least like it. It’s too important not to.

Will We Do What We Say?

2010-12-02T16:29:00.001-05:00

I've had a conundrum in my head for a while now. There is an ever growing movement among us to put "fair trade" in the forethought of our spending habits. (How many people actually know what fair trade is beyond being a trendy concept and a sticker on one type at coffee at their favorite coffee place?)

So there is this movement, if you will, to care. To say that we believe that workers around the world should be paid fairly, work reasonable hours and not be pulled into bonded labor. We expect this treatment – but we don't demand it. We think it's a nice concept, but don't change our lifestyle over it.

And that's the rub. In the last few months I have become increasingly annoyed at people who talk and don't do. People who say they want to help – but don't adjust their budget to accommodate helping, or people who treat what's happening in the world like tea time conversation.

Pompus, maybe. But to say you care but not act is like being an elephant in a china shop. You destroy more than you help. You leave behind a devastating wake that is worse than your apathy.

I almost fainted at an event last summer where an organization was raising money to end sex trafficking. A woman raised her hand and asked about forced labor. The man's response - in a nutshell - was forced labor was too hard, they were sticking to sex slaves. At least he was honest, I guess.

I have read, and I wish I could find the link, that fair trade isn't sustainable, or doesn't do much to help the local economy. Kevin Bales often says you are not going to change things from the production line.

If we honestly went to fair trade (which I think is trendy and doesn't actually encompass what needs to change). Would we truly be willing to pay the cost? Would we be willing to pay for vegetables what it would take for a fair waged harvester to do the job? Would we pay more for a shirt because everyone along the production line got a decent wage?

Don't be too quick to say yes - because I don't think most people actually would.

Most people in this country shop at Wal-Mart, it's cheap, easy, convenient and I would venture most of the products there are made by slave labor. Are we really willing to give up that luxury? Or is it just easier to buy a pound of fair trade coffee and say, "we support the cause?"

How far are you willing to be inconvenienced or change your life to truly help the lives of others?

2010-11-22T14:24:00.000-05:00

via

I saw this the other day and immediately thought of all the things in my life I am trying to keep going at the moment. And how, in the midst of having all these balls in the air, only a couple are of vital importance.

Not one to usually just post something random like this on this blog (my thoughts usually show up here), I wanted to take a second and write about this.

This is the time of year when things get busier. Maybe at work they slow down, but the rest of life speeds up. I have had to take a look at my life as of late and determine which things are TRULY important to me. What am I giving my first/best time to? What could I let drop? Because, let's be honest, something in our life could give.

I came to that conclusion in Rwanda - that to assume I have to do it all, or that is all depends on me, is 1) presumptuous and arrogant, and 2) denying other people the possibility to step up. Some things on our list are our responsibility and therefore we have to do. But what things are we taking on that are not?

What I've decided are the most important things to me right now are 1) life-giving, edifying friendships, 2) doing well at work, and 3) getting to know God. The rest is just noise if those things aren't getting the time and attention they need.

First Lines

2010-11-16T14:25:00.000-05:00

Some first lines are too good to pass up:

Shankar Vedantam of Slate hypothesizes that people continue to procreate, despite overwhelming evidence that parenting isn’t very fun, for much the same reason that cocaine users can’t quit: they’re addicts. ... Like addicts, parents will sacrifice anything for the glimpses of heaven that their offspring periodically provide.”

(From Freakonomics.)

"Advanced" Sexual Consent

2010-11-09T12:15:00.004-05:00

Reprinted from Broadsheet:

Canada's Supreme Court will begin considering today whether a woman can give 'advanced' consent to sex while unconscious. The case involves a 22-year-old Ottawa woman who claims that she was sodomized with a dildo against her will after passing out from consensual asphyxiation. Her common-law spouse, identified as JA in court records, was convicted of sexual assault by a lower court (he was also convicted of domestic abuse on multiple occasions in the past, by the way). Then an appeals court overturned the conviction on the grounds that she had given advanced consent to sex while unconscious. Now the case goes to the country's top court.

The question the court will have to consider is whether the accuser in this case gave explicit 'advanced' consent to any and all sexual activity while unconscious. We can't answer that question, because we don't have all the facts. The bigger question at play here is whether a woman can give legally meaningful 'advanced' consent to sexual activity while passed out -- whether it be from choking, drinking or lord knows what else. Clearly, the answer the Supreme Court gives will set a profoundly important legal precedent. If the answer is 'yes,' a man accused of raping a woman who is passed-out-drunk could claim that she gave 'advanced' consent to sex by drinking so much and getting into bed with him. Wait, who am I kidding, those arguments are already made all the time! But such a verdict could certainly give those defenses additional legal weight. It could also make for a defense in marital rape cases -- a husband could argue that his wife, being his wife, had given advanced consent. (Again, an already popular argument.)

If the court rules in the negative, some say it will hurt couples' freedom to experiment with kinky sex. The imagined scenario is one where a woman says that she wants her partner to choke her until she passes out and then have sex with her. But the BDSM community subscribes to the mantra "safe, sane, and consensual." Erotic asphyxiation, especially to the point where someone passes out for an extended period, is not safe; it's incredibly dangerous and potentially deadly. Everything in the S&M world -- from safe words to "slave contracts" -- are designed to avoid any uncertainty about consent. In this particular case, the accuser's argument isn't that she consented to being choked and sodomized while unconscious; the argument is that she consented to the former but not the latter. You could just as easily speculate that a conviction in this case would be a reaffirmation of the values of the BDSM community.

Whatever the court decides in this particular case, the most important thing is that it upholds the fact that, as the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund urged in a letter, 'a woman has an absolute right to change her mind about consenting to sexual activity at any point during the sexual encounter if she no longer wishes it to take place.'

----

First off, are we really having this discussion? I find the argument for the negative laughable. IF a woman consented to sex after she was passed out - then she wouldn't be filing sexual assault charges. If you consent to something you don't go to the police after.

I find the whole thing hard to comprehend, and would hope the Supreme Court would laugh this loser out of the courtroom and fine him severely for wasting everyone's time.

The bottom line: 'a woman has an absolute right to change her mind about consenting to sexual activity at any point during the sexual encounter if she no longer wishes it to take place.'

The cost of war

2010-10-28T09:42:00.000-04:00

From Jennifer Welker:

"

‘the counting of dead soldiers outside my studio was long and surprisingly eerie; it was hard to forget that every brush stroke was a soldier who had died the previous year.

a lot of people stopped to read the mural and were immediately impressed by the reality portrayed. most of them seemed quite shocked and approached me to ask if what I was painting was real. I tried to explain that I simply wished to create a physical image that could capture people’s imagination, creating awareness of the current numbers in death, war and the infinite discrepancy between the resources and energies destined to fight and protect soldiers at war versus the energies invested in protecting their mental health and stability.’- SR

Average

2010-10-15T18:23:00.002-04:00

“You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” - Jim Rohn

Thoughts?

Who do I spend the most time with?

And who are you impacting?

"We can learn to practice gratitude..."

2010-10-14T11:57:00.000-04:00

Chris Rice at Duke posted this about a recent speaker they had (emphasis added).

The greatest challenge to forming friendships at the margins may be us.

Are we willing to be vulnerable with our friends? Will we risk feeling betrayed? Will we respond in gratitude to the possibility of friendship across divides because we were first called a friend of God?

All good words from Christine Pohl.

Christine challenged us to draw closer to Christ and to draw closer to community. By extending hospitality, we can learn to practice gratitude for God and for each other. We can learn to move to the rhythms of celebrating with one another, sharing meals and even learning to rest.

...

These words strike me as true for those working in development

“Let’s change our language. Let’s not talk about ‘the poor’ anymore. We talk about our friends. The problem is, most of us don’t have friends who are poor. That speaks to the poverty of our friendships.” — Chris Heuertz, co-international executive director of Word Made Flesh.

Dan Pink & Motivation

2010-10-06T10:35:00.000-04:00

Reprinted from Owen Abroad:

Here is a really nice animated talk by Dan Pink on what really motivates us.

For those who can’t play the video, he says that monetary incentives work for simple, straightforward tasks, but they don’t work at all well for tasks that require conceptual and creative thinking. According to him, what motivates people is autonomy, mastery and purpose.

One conclusion I draw from this is that there are probably a lot more people than you might think who would be willing to spend a lot of time and effort helping to make the world a better place by reducing poverty, if we did a better job of enabling them to give their time and abilities. According to Pink, what will motivate them is the challenge, the opportunity to develop mastery, and the knowledge that they are making a contribution to a purpose they believe in. Those of us who work in development need to do some more thinking about how we can provide more platforms on which those contributions can be made, rather than just asking people to pay money in taxes or in donations.

In a more satirical vein, if you work in the aid business I think you’ll enjoy the “Hand Relief International” blog. Here’s the latest post, on innovation in development:

Speaking about thinking – I have been thinking about “innovation” a lot lately, as I noticed the word is all the rage these days. The challenge in our sector is how to “integrate innovation” in our language without changing much about the way things work. … Passing innovation in a world dominated by career professionals with many years in the business and certain ways of doing things is a pretty tall order but then donor’s don’t really want to see much rocking of the boat happening either – that would force them to change their ways, which always makes them uncomfortable – they want to see the word used a lot, and they want to hear the occasional 300-words story about it, that can be put in a neat textbox in a report.

(Thanks to @AIDSPolicyProj for the link to the Dan Pink video)

Well said...

2010-09-30T09:01:00.002-04:00

roses in rain

2010-09-29T15:02:00.000-04:00

sometimes we all need this reminder...

via

Restoration Ministries

2010-09-28T10:54:00.000-04:00

Reprinted from Escaping the Devil's Bedroom - I met with Candace and Restoration Ministries while I lived in DC. It is amazing what they are doing, a piece of the puzzle to ending child trafficking in the U.S. You can read the whole article here, I have just highlighted some of the key points.

- A block or two behind the White House, the street bustles after midnight. Teenage girls in miniskirts and stilettos strut the sidewalks. Heavy eyeshadow, bright lipstick and tight tank tops masquerade their youth, some as young as 13. ... Here in our nation's center for justice, power and democracy, a form of modern day slavery is thriving. Girls launching into prostitution average between 11 to 13 years old in the U.S. America's disposable children are feeding our culture's demand for paid sex...

- In 2003, Candace Wheeler founded the capitol's only Christian outreach to locally prostituted and trafficked girls and women, Restoration Ministries. A handful of staff and volunteers make weekly visits to God's wounded daughters in a jail, a psychiatric hospital and a group home. ... During weekly visits, volunteers and staff create crafts like scrapbooks, watch movies, eat popcorn, laugh and pray for the girls, most younger than 15 years old. During one visit, the girls tackled the riddle, “What is something that belongs to you, but other people use more than you?” The answer: your name. But two girls immediately guessed: “my body.”

- At the end of each group visit, nearly all the girls trace their hand on white paper. Within the hand, they pen prayer requests. “I want prayer to get out and to be safe,” wrote one girl.

- “Many Christians just want to preach the Gospel and hand them a Bible,” Candace says. But doing justice and sharing the Gospel are tightly interwoven. Jesus is visiting the prisoners, loving them in their deepest sorrow, and offering His freedom through Restoration Ministries. In our nation's power nucleus, forgotten girls are discovering God's love for the powerless.

I have come to realize that The Church is the response. Wess Stafford once said - "We (The Church) are God's plan A, and there is no plan B."

I often say if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. One blog I read recently asked: What is your injustice? What gets you so fired up that you can't sit still and could talk about all day?

In other words: What do you care about more than yourself?

Not everyone is called to go be with those girls in prison, not everyone is called to advocate for them. But we are called to love them, to see them as human, to care about what happens to them, to be aware. We cannot be a part of every injustice out there - but we must see everyone as human, a creation of a loving God, and seek to bring humanity and dignity to those we cross in the day to day.

Human sex trafficking in the U.S. is vastly under-discussed. Or we talk about it with minors - but somehow, at 18, she "chose" this life and therefore is no longer a victim. The logic fails when you think about that too long, but how many of us take that time.

But, do me a favor, read the first bullet again - but instead of White House put in the name of your city - Chicago, Denver, Portland, Houston... That sentence is just as true where you live - the question is - do you dare see it and what will your response be?

celebrity aid done right

2010-09-24T14:49:00.001-04:00

Reprinted from Texas in Africa. It's from July - but I still think what she has to say is relevant and good. Have a good weekend everyone!

"Longtime readers of this blog know that I am very cynical about celebrity advocacy in general. My eyes glaze over when I see a link to a story about whichever starlet Prendergast is courting to 'be a voice for Darfur' or a heartwarming 60 Minutes segment about Madonna becoming one with Malawi's orphans. For all the talk about 'bringing attention' to 'neglected crises,' the vast majority of celebrities who get involved on the African continent do little more than bring attention to themselves while funding small programs here or there that might or might not do anyone any good.

All that's to say, this next sentence is going to shock some of you: at least one celebrity is getting it right when it comes to the eastern DRC.

I know. I'm shocked, too. When I heard that Ben Affleck was headed out to Goma, and that he was starting the Eastern Congo Initiative, I groaned. But the more I'm learning about the organization, the more I'm convinced that the ECI is getting it right. Starting with their mission to promote the hadisi, the stories, of the people of the eastern Congo:

The Swahili word for “story”. Every person has the capacity to create their own story. ECI supports local organizations, leaders, and advocates in eastern Congo that are writing a new story for the region.

What is the Eastern Congo Initiative doing right?

Demonstrating a commitment to hiring local leadership. Very few international charities or NGO's that talk about community development actually follow through by trusting locals to direct programs, manage budgets, and run the show. Kudos to the ECI for a commitment to working differently from the beginning.
Working with community organizations that have already established a record of solving problems, providing services, and making programs work, even with extremely limited resources. This is not a program that involves outsiders coming in and telling communities what to do. Rather, ECI is focused on supporting organizations that have a proven record of leading development in their own communities.
Not trying to reinvent the wheel. By working with existing organizations, unnecessary duplication of programs can be prevented. Best practices developed in Congolese communities can be expanded and transferred to other communities. Local expertise developed through the long years of the wars and the transition can be drawn upon.
Being program-driven rather than personality-driven. Yes, the celebrity founder's name is on the website. But the website isn't all about the celebrity. Instead, the focus is on community empowerment in five areas: support for victims of sexual violence, support for vulnerable children, community-based peace and reconciliation, improved health care access, and economic opportunity promotion. That there are more pictures and stories on the website of Congolese leaders helping affected populations than of Affleck's trips there is a good sign that the ECI isn't going to be all about self-promotion. And that is a good thing.

I'm looking forward to watching what happens as the ECI names a country director and begins funding programs that work. Every single time I'm in the region, I meet remarkable people who are doing amazing work to rebuild their communities without any outside support. If the ECI can use Affleck's celebrity to raise funds and provide support to those community leaders in a way that empowers and builds up the eastern Congo while helping support the tremendous potential that exists in the region, I'm all for it."

Child Labor in Agriculture

2010-09-16T15:25:00.000-04:00

from change.org:

The Fair Labor Standards Act, the law which regulates the types of jobs people under 18 can hold, allows children working in agriculture to work longer hours at younger ages than in any other industry. Child farmworkers drop out of school at four times the rate of other children. They die at four times the rate of other children. And they are significantly more vulnerable to extreme forms of exploitation, like human trafficking, because of the lack of legal protections available to them. And as Longoria points out, a disproportionate number of those children are Hispanic.

The Children's Act for Responsible Employment (CARE) would fill in some of these protection gaps. For example, it would apply the same minimum age and maximum working hour requirements to children working in agriculture that other working children enjoy. That would include raising the minimum age for hazardous work from 16, which it currently is for agriculture, to 18, which it is for everything else. It would also increase fines for child labor violations from $11,000 to $15,000.

Consequences of Ignoring Somalia

2010-09-15T10:50:00.000-04:00

FP posted this at the end of August. Just something to think about and read. Sorry for the lack of posting - business trip last week, death in the family this week, all around chaos with finishing up a training... Who would have thought life in CO could be so exciting!

While I don't believe military action is the first answer (though I think we are way past the first answer in Somalia...) I do think it's time for a conversation about the rules or levels of engagement especially since things are changing, and warfare like this is only going to get more prevalent if you ask little ol' pessimistic me... Enjoy the read - emphasis added for you skimmers.

Kenyan ambassador: We will all pay for ignoring Somalia:

"Kenya's new ambassador to the United States, Elkanah Odembo, has a message to the United States: Ignore Somalia to your own peril. For the last half-decade, Somalia's near-anarchy has taken a particularly pernicious turn toward a brand of Islamist fundamentalism not seem since the Taliban. "You can’t make this investment in Afghanistan and Pakistan and not worry about where the terrorists are going to," warns Odembo. "And the one place that we know for certain they are going to is Somalia."

There's no doubt about it; Somalia is getting worse, not better. Since 2006, the Islamist militia al Shabab, and several other similar groups, have gained control of the majority of the territory. Just yesterday, Shabab stormed a hotel in Mogadishu and killed 30 -- eight of them members of Parliament. Today the fighting is roaring once again. Al Shabab has allied themselves with al Qaeda and vowed to wage regional jihad, taking vengence out of countries who have taken action in Somalia. And low and behold, earlier on July 11, the group claimed responsibility for what would be its first international attack: two bomb blasts in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, retaliation, al Shabab said, for Ugandan peacekeepers in Mogadishu. "The attack drove the point home that al Shabaab are not just a group of unhappy militants making life difficult for the federal government in Mogadishu; they are a problem for the region and therefore for the whole world," says Odembo.

Since that attack, however, Washington -- and the international community more broadly -- have turned to a African Union peacekeeping mission in Mogadishu for answers. More troops are now promised from a number of countries, boosting the ranks of the now somewhat helpless and fraught mission.

It won't work, Odembo cautioned. "It cannot be this piecemeal, so and so, send us 50 troops, so and so, send us 70 troops, so and so send us a bit of money; so and so, send us a bit of equipment."

What does he suggest? Only one thing will work: seeking out the militants and fighting them. "From the figures that I have, we’re talking about a group of 3,000 or at the most 4,000 individuals," he says. "So if the int’l community is really serious about going after them, then you need to see the kind of resources that have been deployed in Afghanistan, and say let’s go after them."

That will be a hard sell -- it's already a hard sell in Afghanistan, let alone Somalia. But Kenya of all places knows what it's like to have a failed state just next door. The country has watched Somalia dip into seemingly unending chaos over the last two decades -- and it's felt the effects. Today, no less than half a million refugees from Somalia crowd Kenya's northern tip. So it might be worth a good listen: Somalia won't be easily brushed away."

Trouble in the Congo

2010-09-01T12:13:00.000-04:00

From Adventures of a Retired Armchair Traveler - a round up of articles and blogs on what is (still!) going on in the Congo:

Gunmen Fire on Plane Carrying aid Workers in Congo – AP

Damning DRC Report not Altered -UN – IOL

Notes from a Young American in Congo: Rape Continues – The NY Times

U.N. E-Mail Shows Early Warning of Congo Rapes – The NY Times

DR Congo Rebel Commanders Could Face war Crimes Charges – Telegraph.co.uk

UN: Perpetrators of DRC Gang Rapes Must be Brought to Justice – VOA

Another interesting discussion at the moment in the release of a UN Mapping Report.

Congo Siasa shares his thoughts. Here is how he explains what the report is:

Over a year after its completion, the UN mapping report has finally been leaked to the press. The report was mandated by the UN to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Congo between 1993 and 2003 in the hope that there could be accountability for the violence. To date, almost nothing has been done to bring those responsible to justice.

The report is huge, spanning 545 pages, and deals with war crimes committed by the security forces of Angola, Mobutu's Zaire, Uganda, Chad, Laurent Kabila's government, Joseph Kabila's government, Zimbabwe, the ex-FAR and Interahamwe (and later the FDLR), the Mai-Mai and the many other rebel groups. I will speak at length about the massacres carried out by these forces in later postings. Here, I will speak about the most controversial claim: the massacres carried out by the Rwandan army (RPA) together with the AFDL rebellion (led by Laurent Kabila) against the Hutu refugees in 1996-1997.

...

A few words of caution. The report was not based on the standards of a judicial investigation; it was intended to provide a broad mapping of the most serious human rights abuses between 1993 and 2003. Indeed, the report says that an international court will have to be the final arbiter of whether the RPA/AFDL did actually commit acts of genocide. Verbatim: "The systematic and widespread attacks described in this report, which targeted very large numbers of Rwandan Hutu refugees and members of the Hutu civilian population, resulting in their death, reveal a number of damning elements that, if they were proven before a competent court, could be classified as crimes of genocide."

You can read his highlights of he report here.

Here are some Texas In Africa's thoughts:

The facts are not on the Rwandan government's side.Western reporters, Zairian/Congolese NGO's, and international NGO's were aware of and keeping track of these human rights abuses as they happened. That's not to say it was all cut and dried - there were certainly genocidaires among the Hutu refugees who fled across Zaire in advance of the rebel and RPA forces. But there were also women and children. All of them were massacred. Even Kristof covered it.
This report vindicates Howard French, whose masterful reporting from the ground for the New York Times in 1996-97 was what got me interested in the region in the first place. French covered the use of Hutu refugees as human shields and the attacks when they happened. He wasn't allowed access to some of the areas in which these abuses happened, but it was evident to everyone what was going on - when bulldozers head out to fields to bury bodies and the smell of death is heavy in the air, locals know what has happened. French covers this in much more detail in his book, which you should absolutely read if you haven't already. His coverage of the leaked report appeared in the Times this weekend. You won't find a piece that puts the report into better context.
Philip Gourevitch covers the leak and the Rwandan government's reaction to the report for the New Yorker. He implies that the methodology for the report, the standards by which it defines "genocide," and the fact that Kofi Annan arranged for the report to be conducted somehow discredits his findings. He implies that Annan was interested in spreading the blame after Annan's failure to stop the 1994 genocide.
I disagree. Even if Annan did want to do penance for his errors, that does not change the facts on the ground. Gourevitch is a brilliant writer, but his reporting is rarely critical of Rwanda's regime. He has long taken far too much of what Kagame and other RPF representatives tell him at face value. I think this stems from a fatal error in perception that Gourevitch made while reporting in the immediate aftermath of the genocide. Faced with the incredible horrors around him, he assumed that since thegenocidaires were the bad guys, Kagame and his team were the good guys. What Gourevitch failed to understand then - and seems to still be missing now, despite all evidence to the contrary - is that there were never any good guys in this fight. Blood is on almost everyone's hands, and there's plenty of blame to go around.
The use of the term "genocide" is intentional and significant. I am not an international lawyer and I do not know whether the crimes committed by these particular forces in Zaire constitute "genocide" or not. The draft report concludes that there were "tens of thousands" of Hutu victims of this violence; that's a far cry from the counter-genocide claims of hundreds of thousands dead that many Hutus in Rwanda's diaspora have made for years. But in the end, it doesn't matter what you call it. Summary executions of women and children refugees who are fleeing violence or forced to serve as human shields is wrong. It doesn't matter how many people were killed, whether they were targeted because of their ethnicity, or who did it. And no one ought to be allowed to get away with it.

Elmo and Gervais

2010-08-31T14:37:00.003-04:00

Just something fun and light for your Monday... Enjoy!

The Secret of TJ's:

2010-08-26T12:24:00.000-04:00

Then again - some of us just know TJ's is the best grocery store out there:

Republished from Kottke:

The secrets of Trader Joe's:

Privately held Trader Joe's is highly secretive and doesn't do interviews, so Fortune did some digging around to see what makes the retail chain such a success.

A ringing bell instead of an intercom signals that more help is needed at the registers. Registers don't have conveyor belts or scales, and perishables are sold by unit instead of weight, speeding up checkout. Crew members aren't told the margins on products, so placement decisions are made based not on profits but on what's best for the shopper. Every employee works all aspects of the store, and if you ask where the roasted chestnuts are he'll walk you over instead of just saying 'aisle five.' Want to know what they taste like? He can probably tell you, and he might even open the bag on the spot for you to try.

Customer service, pay people well, and trust them to do good work. That and be clever about what you sell and to whom.

Sexual Assault in the Congo:

2010-08-25T14:53:00.000-04:00

Reprinted from UN Dispatch:

DRC: the SG has issued a statement today in response to the rape and assault of at least 154 Congolese civilians during an attack by armed elements of the Mai-Mai and FDLR in eastern DRC earlier this month, expressing his “outrage”, calling on armed groups in the DRC to lay down their weapons and join the peace process and calling on the government of the DRC to investigate the incident and bring the perpetrators to justice. He has decided to immediately dispatch ASG Atul Khare, Officer-in-Charge of DPKO to the DRC, and has instructed Margot Wallström, SRSG for Sexual Violence in Conflict, to take the lead in the UN’s response and follow-up to the incident. Wallström has also issued a strongly-worded statement “condemning the rapes in the strongest possible terms”.

Incase you missed what happened - from The BBC:

"According to reports, the rebels gang-raped nearly 200 women and some baby boys over four days...by fighters from the Rwandan FDLR militia and Congolese Mai-Mai rebels in the village of Bunangiri, Mr Nesirky said. 'The secretary-general is outraged by the rape and assault. This is another grave example of both the level of sexual violence and the insecurity that continue to plague Congo,' he told the Associated Press. ... In April, a senior UN official said it was "the rape capital of the world." A report by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative showed that 60% of rape victims in South Kivu province had been gang-raped by armed men. ... More than 8,000 women were raped during fighting in 2009, the UN says. "

So what are we to do with this? The attack happened a few days ago, and I am still unable to formulate a calm response. It makes me angry - so angry. How much longer? How much freaking longer are we going to allow this to happen?

What is it going to take? The totality of women raped this year in the Congo will be a footnote to one incident. The fact that sexual violence in that region has been going on for over a decade will be a sentence at the end of the story - if this even makes it onto the nightly news.

All I can see is that scene in Hotel Rwanda where Paul Rusesabagina is taking to Jack - a reporter at the hotel. And Paul says: I am glad that you have shot this footage and that the world will see it. It is the only way we have a chance that people might intervene.

Jack looks at the TV: Yeah and if no one intervenes, is it still a good thing to show?

Paul looks at him stunned and horrified: How can they not intervene when they witness such atrocities?

To which Jack answers: I think if people see this footage they'll say, 'Oh my God that's horrible,' and then go on eating their dinners.

I don't think we can comprehend 400 women and children being raped in four days. We cannot imagine gangs of rebels gang raping that many people in that short a time. We cannot fathom it - our minds will not allow us to fully take that in. So we justify it by saying, "Oh that's Africa." "It's a time of war." Or claiming there is nothing we can do. It is an issue happening "over there" so we can move on in our lives, go back to our dinner and turn this absolutely cowardly incident into a topic of discussion.

And the thing is I don't know how to respond to it.

Policy is Washington won't do anything. Awareness is a step - yes. It's frustrating because anything I can think of is behind the action - victims assistance and care (which is VITAL don't get me wrong...) but if you are always two steps behind the problem how do you solve it? Response only is not a lasting option because it will never solve the issue.

Just breaks my heart...

What I'm Reading...

2010-08-16T12:45:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I have done a post like this on the blog - so here you go. Today I think we'll have a theme on photography... I am on this kick right now of reading photography blogs so I have to admit that is where I am spending a lot of my time.

1. The NYTimes has a blog called Lens. It focuses on visual arts journalism. They usually do a round up everyday of photos - but have some interesting special reports.

Like this one focusing on currency. Naoki Tomasini has taken a lot of time photographing the integrate details of the bills so many of us use without ever stopping to really look at.

I remember being fascinated by the currency in Cambodia and Rwanda (they used dollars in Ecuador - boring!!) - it's so colorful and seeing how another country chooses to represent itself.

Photo 9 is cool of the Iranian rial.

2. NPR's The Picture Show is somewhat of the same idea.

Recently Claire O'Neill did a story on Marilyn Monroe in a series of photographs shot by Ed Feingersh in 1955. "Feingersh took a documentary approach, photographing Monroe doing everyday things"

The photos show a human side of this icon who has become so much of a sex symbol all these later. People tend to have a set image of Monroe - but we tend to forget she was human.

3. NYTimes word of the day: dogged. It is an adjective. Do you know what it means (no cheating!)?

I would have said insulted or put down.

It means: stubbornly unyielding.

4. Pete Wilson - who is slowly becoming one of my favorite bloggers - recently did a post on our worth. I responded to it on my other blog. But felt it was worth mentioning again. Maybe more so here for the idea of the worth we place on other people. I often times assign greater value to people attached to a cause/country/injustice I care about. We all do. But how does that relate back to how our Father sees each person He creates?

I don' think there is a hierarchy with God. I don't believe He loves me more (or less) than anyone else. I don't believe He loves President Obama any more (or less) than anyone else. It is not His love (or favor?) that allow one person to get further in life than someone else. Maybe it has more to do with obedience - I'll have to mull this over more... But what if we treated each person we met, each person we discussed, each person regardless of their relationship back to us - the same?

Could we ever truly see people that way?

5. In random news - parents in China cannot look at their children's mobile phones.

The Guardian ran a story a few weeks ago about how, "Parents in one Chinese city are to be prevented from snooping on their children's online activity and text messages."

Adults, including family members, are banned from searching through children's computers or phones under a new regional law passed in Chongqing, southwest China, state media reported today. The regulation outlaws snooping into their emails, text messages, web chats, and browser history. The regulation is designed to protect the rights of children, but is surprising given widespread concern in China about excessive internet use among young people and their access to unsuitable material.

It is an interesting privacy debate for sure. How much privacy should a child be given? I tend towards the not very much end. I think privacy should be connected to trust - and chances are if your parents have a reason to be suspicious. you probably have something to hide...

Though what about journals or emails? Where is the line?

Just food for thought on your Monday...

6. And lastly, I got turned onto Katie Turner who is an amazing illustrator. Her journal is available at B&N. But she did a sketch using the opening words of Lolita - one of the best passages of literature ever written. If you have not read this book it's worth the read. Totally disturbing and wrong on so many levels, I have to admit I have never been so angered and yet intrigued by a novel. I had a hard time feeling sympathy for the little girl, though knew that nothing justifies what the main character chose to do.

Video Poetry

2010-08-15T16:33:00.002-04:00

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

The 2010 World Humanitarian Day Project project is a...

2010-08-12T18:09:00.000-04:00

Originally found on Jennifer Welker.

this video makes me miss the Development world very Very much. Enjoy.

(here's the link)

"You don't know how it feels..."

2010-08-09T14:55:00.000-04:00

So just leave it to one good video to shake wake the fighter within!

Here we go:

1. Watch the video.

2. Remember this is DOMESTIC trafficking - meaning within the U.S.

3. If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem.

My sister got frustrated this weekend because at church the speaker was going on and on about children internationally who are starving - and she wanted to know what is being done for kids in the U.S. who don't have enough to eat. I just smiled and welcomed her to the conversation...

"You don't know how it feels..."

I can't count the number of conversations, presentations, and posters I have recently that talk about how people are not a statistic, they are not a cause, they are not something that you need to go in and save - they are a PERSON. Stop talking about the millions of children in the U.S. currently enslaved in the sex trade - and talk about ONE.

I always think that ONE girl being sold at twelve should be ONE too many. ONE girl being abused should be too many. It's not about the 11 million, or the 1 in 4 women who will be abused by 18 - but ONE. ONE little girl who was raped, who lost her innocence, who was bought and sold and used by a man who never had any intention but using her for money.

Listen to what she says. LISTEN to her story. It is hard and you don't want to - but you HAVE to. Then ask - what is my response?

Again - if you are not part of solution you are part of the problem. Apathy is no different than action in the wrong direction.

- -

angels & demons

2010-08-09T10:59:00.000-04:00

Since there is no way I can say it better - I give you this insightful post on the elections in Rwanda from Texas in Africa. Enjoy.

angels & demons:

Rwandans vote today, and by the time many of us in the states are awake, voting will be nearly over. There is little reason to expect that the polls will be anything other than peaceful, orderly, and calm. Nor is there reason to believe that Paul Kagame won't win a resounding victory, giving him another seven-year term in office. According to the country's constitution, this should be his final term in office.

It's been interesting to watch global opinion on Kagame shift over the course of the last year or so. Was it only last year that Time ran a breathless Rick Warren Time 100 tribute to Rwanda's president? That piece demonstrates quite a contrast with the international media's view of Kagame today, where pieces questioning his democratic credentials and authoritarian style, wondering if the RPF had a role in several murders and assassination attempts, and debates on the wisdom of unquestioning Western support for the regime are everywhere.

I'm not sure what prompted this shift. Quite a few observers have claimed that Kagame and the RPF seem to have gone off the rails in the last few months. But that's not really the right way to look at it. Very little has changed in the way Rwanda is ruled. Authoritarianism has been the modus operandi in Rwanda since the genocide. Allegations of human rights abuses were widespread in the years immediately following the genocide. The Congolese have been complaining about Rwanda's extracurricular activities in the Kivus for years.

The difference, it seems, is that the world has taken notice. Whether that's because the UN identified Rwanda's major role in recent conflicts in the Kivus or because a new generation of reporters were less likely to believe everything the RPF told them or because Twitter and the blogosphere make the free and open exchange of information easier, I don't know. But more balanced coverage of Rwanda is a welcome change for those of us who've been watching the region for a long time.

Every time I write about Rwanda, I brace for a barrage of wild comments and hateful emails from various sides of the Rwanda debate. Some of these commenters are in Rwanda; others are in the diaspora, mostly in London, Paris, Brussels, and D.C. They allege all kinds of things - that Kagame is a sociopath, that he's a saint, that I'm shilling for the RPF, that I'm shilling for the FDLR, that Kagame can do no wrong, that Kagame can do no good, that I'm a racist for calling out Kagame, that anyone who thinks anything good about Kagame is delusional. Not all, but many of these comments come off as pretty irrational, based more on feelings than fact.

Here's the thing: Kagame is a politician. He is neither all good nor all bad. He is not an angel, he is not a demon. Like most politicians, he wants to stay in power. In a country with still-weak institutions, a traumatic past, and a dangerous neighborhood, Kagame has taken steps to maintain his power that are well outside the norms of democratic governance. He has restored stability and grown the country's economy at an astonishing rate, while trying to move past a devastating genocide that was primarily directed against members of his own ethnic group. He has also overseen the perpetration of major human rights abuses, both in Rwanda in the years immediately after the genocide, and, to a much greater extent, in Congo/Zaire, during the wars and through support of the RCD-Goma and the CNDP.

Kagame is a brilliant military tactician and is a public relations genius. He is incredibly skilled at telling influential people what they want to hear. He has a serious problem in that he's lost control of the narrative about his country and his person. He has a more serious problem in that the RPF is beginning to fragment over his leadership and degree of control.

To me, these are facts. The specifics (how many people died, where and how exactly they died) are up for debate; we will never know how many people were killed at Tingi-Tingi or Kibeho, just like we'll never know the names of everyone who died in Kibuye. But it's hard to have discussions on these topics in a forum like this, because even facts are up for debate, even among well-educated, well-informed commenters like the ones this blog is fortunate to have.

I think about this a lot. Why do so many debates about Rwanda almost immediately descend into chaos, with two sides talking past one another, not agreeing on a narrative or on the terms of the debate?

I suspect it might have something to do with the trauma so many Rwandans, including those in the diaspora, experienced over the course of the last 20 years. That's not to say that 'being Rwandan makes you irrational,' but rather to raise an important question about the limits of reconciliation when you've experienced horror beyond what most of us can imagine. If I'd watched members of my family be slaughtered or had to flee my country or lost my savings as a result of genocide or war, I'd probably have a hard time evaluating the situation with a fair eye to both sides of the story, too. And I'm not sure what trade-offs I'd be willing to make in the name of stability.

I don't know how you get past that kind of trauma, or if it's even possible. But I do know that Rwanda desperately needs an open and free arena in which all issues can be peacefully discussed. Labeling dissent as 'genocide ideology' won't solve this problem, and many other RPF initiatives don't seem to be convincing most that ethnicity in Rwanda doesn't exist.

Much of the debate over Rwanda's future has been framed in terms of a choice between stability and development or freedom and anarchy. That's exactly the way the RPF wants the discussion to proceed; their claim that freedom will result in another genocide justifies repression in the name of maintaining stability and the regime's impressive economic growth record. It would be mistake to think that many, many Rwandans don't see their choices in the same terms.

But the clock is running out on Kagame's style of authoritarianism. The international community has clued-in to his style, and while I'm sure the lens of attention won't be so sharply focused on Kigali after today, the tensions we've seen bubble up over the course of the last year aren't going to go away. The likelihood of violence there is higher today than it has been at any time in the last decade. It would be an unspeakable tragedy if Kagame's rule ultimately produced just the sort of violence he's worked so hard to prevent.

Rwandans need the right - and the space - to determine their country's destiny. I'm among those who believe that freedom and development are possible, side-by-side, and that allowing the one will make the other stronger. Here's hoping that one day, Rwanda's people are allowed to choose both. I'm just sorry that they weren't allowed to do so today.

A BLOG POST: Are you a dreamer?

2010-08-04T14:19:00.000-04:00

Not really a current event - but a worthwhile post for today.

From Jesus Needs New PR (one of my favorite blogs out there!).

A BLOG POST: Are you a dreamer?: "

Jessica is in New York City this week for the BlogHer Conference.

This trip is her first to New York City! On our first date–April 2003 in Nashville at The Palm–Jessica told me that for years she’d dreamed of going to New York City. She talked about her love for theater, the Today Show, shopping, etc. So needless to say, I’m so very excited for her. If you know Jess, then you know how insanely organized she is. She’s a planner, so she’s scheduled like 100 things to see, do, and experience (including a musical, a tour of the Today Show, a visit to Martha Stewart’s headquarters, a mini concert/Q&A time with Gavin DeGraw, and much more). Her four-and-a-half days there are jam packed.

I’m so thrilled for her.

After dropping her off at the airport, I teared up as Elias and I pulled away. Not because I was sad to see her leave (I was, but that’s not why I got emotional), but because she was preparing to experience something that she’d dreamed about since she was a little girl (and yes, while watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade). For several years I’ve wanted to take her to NYC, but between scheduling, becoming parents, not really being able to afford it–you know, real life stuff–we couldn’t make it happen. So in some ways, watching Jess get to experience her “dream come true” is a dream come true for me too. There’s something cool about seeing a person realize a dream–even if it’s just a small one.

But really, I’m not surprised that Jess is going to New York. In our nearly-six years of marriage, I’ve watched Jessica realize numerous dreams–big and small ones, shallow and deep ones. My wife is a Type-A dreamer. I’m not kidding. And while her Type-A passionate spirit can get overwhelming from time to time–I think that’s because I’m a Type-Non-A dreamer–I also love it. Her detail-oriented-tourist-trap-loving-go-go-go spirit makes vacations un-relaxing, but it also makes them memorable. One of the reasons I fell in love with Jessica is because she’s a go-getter; she doesn’t simply let life happen; she makes it happen. And then she takes what happens, and makes it into an event, a day, a moment worth remembering (and then she scrapbooks the happening so family, friends, and the occasional stranger can cherish it, too).

I love that Jessica dreams. Because watching her dream, encourages me to continue dreaming, too.

(Now for a short blermon–”blog sermon”. Cue the strings…)

Do you dream? And if so, when was the last time you experienced a dream come true? Just a small one that you’ve been wanting to do since you were young. Because the older I get, the more tempted I am to stop dreaming. Or to stop dreaming for me, and focus on dreaming for Elias. But I’m inclined to think that dreaming is perhaps more important (or at least, just as important) when you’re older than it is when you’re young.

But so many of us let life keep us from dreaming. Our finances. Our failures. Our fears. Our (fill in the blank).

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to let finances, failures, fears, and the opinions of others keep me from living life and living it passionately, deeply–and yes, sometimes shallowly (is that a word?)–I want to dream (Ugh. This blog post is starting to sound a little Joel Osteenish). My wife encourages me to dream. I want to dream for Elias, but I also want him to see his father dreaming…

And then I want to see a couple of those dreams come true.

And if they don’t come true, I’ll call my therapist and then write a blog post about how I tried and failed, and some of you will relate and that will probably make me feel less alone. But sadly, failure is a part of dreaming sometimes.

But not dreaming is failure, so why not take our chances?

A BLOG POST: Are you a dreamer? is a post from: Jesus Needs New PR

House Sends Convicted Sex Offenders Unpacking

2010-08-03T10:26:00.000-04:00

Below is an article republished from Change.org.

My favorite line: Upset offenders claim they'll be unable to leave the country or legally expatriate to 'get a fresh start' somewhere else because the bill gives the Secretary of State the right to rescind the passports of anyone awaiting trial for a sex offense against a minor or a permanent resident of the U.S. who has been convicted of that offense ... In other words, hey folks, wouldn't you like to dump us on unsuspecting communities on the other side of the world so we can violate their children instead of yours? No, actually. We would like you to be unable to harm any child, ever, and expect you to abide by the laws of general human decency, as well as those of the state, or face the consequences.

I understand there are human rights for everyone - though you could argue pedophiles take away the rights of their victims when they purchase them or take away their chance at a normal childhood due to repeat abuse - but really? I think at some point a person sacrifices their rights to claim all the basic freedoms the rest of us enjoy. And I think raping children is one of those decisions that means you get to live with a few less freedoms - mainly the right to travel to another country and abuse another child.

Pedophilia cannot be cured. So, letting a pedophile relocate to another country to "start over" is reckless and stupid.

I love this law - and I've seen it work. If an offender wants to go abuse a child in Russia or Cambodia or El Salvador - that's their prerogative. But it is our prerogative to throw the full extent of the U.S. Justice system against them. And if they are traveling as a U.S. citizen - we will treat them as one and prosecute them to the fullest extent of our laws (though I do think there is something to be said for letting Mr. Pedophile serve out his sentence is said Russian jail).

I would say that once you have seen the consequences of systematic sexual abuse - whether it be the prolonged abuse or affects of repeat purchasing and rape, you should all be able to agree that more needs to be done to increase the cost of abusing a child. And if offenders are complaining about it - then send the Bill through even faster! It means we touched a nerve.

"House Sends Convicted Sex Offenders Unpacking:

On Tuesday, the House of Representatives sent convicted sex offenders UNpacking by passing a bill that would give Megan's Law an international scope and enforce strict regulations on sex-offender travel across U.S. borders. Back in February, this bill was still a gleam in daddy's eye. Now it's quickly making its journey into the world, quite literally. Covenant House, an organization caring for nearly 70,000 homeless youth, many victims of sex trafficking, is among those credited for championing the bill, petitioning Congress with over 30,000 signers, along with Representatives Chris Smith and Dan Lungren. The bill's next stop is the Senate, where it is expected to pass posthaste. (Read the bill in it's entirety here.)

In a statement on his website, Lungren reflected that with effective domestic enforcement of Megan's Law, sex offenders head overseas to commit their crimes instead. But now Lungren believes that will change, saying, 'The bill we passed today, H.R. 5138, will bring us one step closer to stopping these predators before they do unspeakable, irreparable damage to children.'

Not everyone agrees the bill should fly, least surprisingly, convicted sex offenders. There are blogs and online communities where offenders descry the bill as a violation of their human rights and basic American freedoms. Upset offenders claim they'll be unable to leave the country or legally expatriate to 'get a fresh start' somewhere else because the bill gives the Secretary of State the right to rescind the passports of anyone awaiting trial for a sex offense against a minor or a permanent resident of the U.S. who has been convicted of that offense. But not every sex offense is against a minor so not every offender risks losing their passport. Besides, if you destroy the life of a child by sexually exploiting them, maybe it's fair that you, too, should have to live with the consequences for the rest of your life.

My favorite argument is that Americans who are afraid of sex offenders in their communities will be forced to live with them indefinitely if offenders can't travel freely to other countries. In other words, hey folks, wouldn't you like to dump us on unsuspecting communities on the other side of the world so we can violate their children instead of yours? No, actually. We would like you to be unable to harm any child, ever, and expect you to abide by the laws of general human decency, as well as those of the state, or face the consequences.

The only argument against the bill that makes me question it, and then only its language versus its intent, is that it violates Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 'Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.' Does this bill violate that right if it takes away the passports of those who were convicted of a sex offense against a minor if they served their time and were deemed unlikely to reoffend? Otherwise, I don't see how notifying other countries that a person who has committed a sex crime is heading their way keeps that person from leaving their country. It makes it more difficult, but only just.

Chris Smith put it best when he said, 'Child predators thrive on secrecy, a secrecy that allows them to commit heinous crimes against children with impunity and without any meaningful accountability.' International Megan's Law will take that dirty laundry, those heinous secrets, out of their suitcases, airing them to the proper authorities. Most of the world is okay with that.

Photo By: Michael (mx5tx) "

Rwanda

2010-07-26T13:59:00.000-04:00

I realized the other day that a year ago I was in Rwanda. A year ago I was adjusting to life at Deo's and learning to adapt to dozens of things I never thought possible. I had not yet gotten tired of being called a "Muzungu" (white person) every where I went. I had not yet surrendered to the stirring in my heart that God kept putting there. I was high off of being in another place, Congo was still just a dream...

So much has changed in a year. If you had told me I would be back in CO and actually ok with it (for now!) I would have laughed at you. But God can do incredible things...

I found this post this afternoon and so share it with you...

Blessings friends.

Today is my third day in Rwanda. I slept in this AM, having had a crazy schedule since arriving on the 4th. I am currently sitting on the balcony of the guest house, with a slight breeze, sunshine all around, and someone practicing the drums. The missionary life is tough, let me tell you.

I realized that I am not in Rwanda on a missions trip. That I am not only here for a short time and therefore do not need to fill up every moment with tasks and "doing something." I was exhausted and needed to sleep - being overly emotional and touchy wasn't doing anyone any good. And just pushing through would have, in the long run, done more harm than good.

If I can get a photo to load of Rwanda I will. Let me just tell you that it is an amazing beautiful country. Little know fact: the elevation is the same as CO. It's true. We start at 5,000 feet above sea level and just go up from there. Rwanda truly is the land of 1,000 hills. Everywhere I look all Isee are rolling hills and they don't stop. Every time you turn one hill there are a 1,000 more waiting for you.

I got to see the volcanoes yesterday. The highest once reaches over 13,000 feet. We went to show As We Forgive at the Sonrise School. It was an amazing experience. The country is still remembering those killed in the genocide. Many in the room were early high school, meaning they were not alive for the genocide, but live in the wake of it. One girl's father was killed in those 100 days - she never knew him. But the need to talk about it, to grieve, to forgive, to move on is still as necessary for her as for her mother.

It's amazing being here. I will say it again and again - Rwanda is more than the genocide. It is an amazing country that is trying to healthly deal with and more on from trauma. But you cannot live in the pain - you must look for a better tomorrow. That doesn't mean it didn't happen or that it wasn't important - it just means you are not going to stay in your tragedy.

Beauty of the Gulf coast marsh

2010-07-22T11:04:00.000-04:00

Reprinted from PoppyTalk.

Beauty of the Gulf coast marsh: "photos left to right: the fishing camp seen from a handmedown kayak out in the marsh, the mighty Brown Pelican, boom out in the water, Laughing Gulls on perches in front of the camp

Contributer post by Kathryn of Blackbird Letterpress

As the oils still flows 5000 ft under the ocean's surface, into the gulf, we wait. We wait for the consequences, for the effects on the animal life, the ocean life and the people. There is no clear outcome. Everyone has an opinion. And all we really know is that it's just bad.

David and I went down to the fishing camp last weekend and the area is still clean. So instead of talking about how fortunate it is for now or the fear of oil drifting in, I thought it would be better to document. To document it's beauty at this moment of oil-free-ness. Not sure how long it will last or if somehow the weather spares the area and doesn't bring it in. Hurricane Alex sucked the oil west, so it's just a matter of time....The boom has been laid out, working boats and helicopters are monitoring.

The camp is situated 6 miles off the coast, out in the marsh. There used to be land under it, but now it's just water and mud. (search for 'Lake Tambour, LA' at google maps, satellite view, it's the tiny white dot north of Bayou Charles Theriot) Built in the mid 90s, the fishing camp has been a place of somewhat remoteness in an area where land is rapidly decreasing. We've only been going to this camp for about a year, but we go often, sometimes every weekend. We were married on the deck there last October. Last weekend, each morning the dolphins slowly swam by, the Snowy Egrets graced us with their presence, and there was even a glimpse of one Roseate Spoonbill. The Sandwich Terns feuded with the Pelicans for perches and the Redfish were feeding.

I hope these photos will help illustrate how beautiful and inspiring this area is. Thanks Poppytalk for holding a Response market! Remember the gulf.

and a rainbow....

kathryn,

blackbird letterpress, gallery 44

donate: Oxfam
Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research
National Wildlife Federation

Tide of Destruction

2010-07-21T12:57:00.000-04:00

Reprinted from Steve McCurry. This whole thing should sadden and anger you and yet, we are all a part of this - all a bit responsible... So then the question becomes what are you going to do about it and how will it make you change how you live and what you take for granted...

Tide of Destruction: "

The Two Gulfs

The largest oil spill in history until now, caused by the deliberate atrocity of the Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army as they were retreating from Kuwait, covered 600 square miles of sea surface, and blackened 300 miles of coastline and decimated the once-abundant wildlife.

Saddam’s army deliberately spilled as much as six million barrels of crude as they blasted pipelines, and emptied loaded tankers into the Persian Gulf. Everything that wasn’t spilled into the water was set on fire.

The Persian Gulf catastrophe would have even been worse if it were not for four brave Kuwaitis who tricked the Iraquis by making them think that a 48-inch pipe had already released all the oil from storage tanks. Tom Canby (National Geographic, August 1991)

Hundreds of volunteers cleaned up habitats and laid protective booms across tidal channels. Even though at least 20,000 birds died, many were meticulously cleaned treated, and released.

Comparison of the estimated spillage of three major oil disasters:

Gulf of Mexico: 126-210 million gallons (2.8-4.8 Million Barrels) as of July 13, 2010

Persian Gulf: 84-250 million gallons (2-6 Million Barrels)

Exxon Valdez: 11 million gallons (260,000 to 750,000 Barrels)

Contrary to the reports that the spill had few long-term effects, there is ample evidence that there was long-term damage; some of the oil in the tidal flats is as much as a foot under the surface twenty years later.

To track the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico : http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/04/29/interactive.spill.tracker/index.html

A Testimony: Truth Without Photoshop

2010-07-06T12:45:00.002-04:00

Reprinted from Dirty Girls Ministry Blog:

A Testimony: Truth Without Photoshop:
We'd love to have you pop over and join the conversation in the comment section for A Testimony: Truth Without Photoshop.
- - - - - - - - - -
A must listen if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of sexual abuse or struggled with sexual addiction.

Take the time to watch this. Take the time to listen. (click here if you are in FB reading this). 87% of child molesters say they were acting out something they saw in porn. Maybe porn isn't as victimless as some want us to believe... I also love what she said about how what we watch affects our response. Tiny seeds planted become acceptable thoughts, which leads to action - or inaction - the acceptance of what was once thought repugnant. The slow breaking down of society, of morals, of response - to apathy. There is a really good post at Change.org about how we see trafficked women thanks to the T.V. Did you know most women being prostituted in the U.S. were victims of sexual abuse a kids? It all comes back around...

She was eight years old. Molested by two different men by ten. But listen at the end - to the power of the cross. We can't forget the cross - we can't forget what God gave and we so easily reject. Her faith is real, it's not a copout or a band-aid. Only God can take that hurt - only God can take any hurt - and make us able to not let us mark is, keep damaging us, haunting us. God can do that - and it comes through the suffering and pain, rejection and death of His Son.

There is a lot in this video. Thanks for posting it Crystal.

Until ALL are free

2010-07-04T13:54:00.000-04:00

Reprinted for Love146 blog.

Until ALL are free:

'To be free is to not merely cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.'- Nelson Mandela

What I'm Reading...

2010-07-03T11:31:00.000-04:00

Blood diamonds are making a comeback! IRIN and Africa Works have run posts on the issue. The key is Zimbabwe and whether or not (not!) they satisfy the minimum requirements for their diamonds to be considered "conflict free" or if conflict diamonds are getting labeled Kimberley safe when they are anything but. The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme has a lot of good, it started off as a good idea - but like many other international organizations, or bodies, has failed to do what it was supposed to. When many are calling on cell phone providers to create something similar to the KPCS we need to look at the success/failure of the Kimberley Process before we move too far forward.

Steve Jobs weighed in on the issue of conflict minerals (article 2).

Yes, it is incredibly hard to verify positively that organizations aren't using conflict minerals - but it has to be done. To do nothing because it's hard - and to just assume that someone will be honest when they write - come on Steve! You are a pioneer, a visionary, a man who has done time and time again things that were hard, seemingly impossible. You look at the bar people set for you and destroy it. So, you're telling you are going to sit there and wait for someone else to figure out how to fix this? I am a Mac girl all the way - but not if Apple just expects us to be content with them shrugging their shoulders and saying, "Let someone else handle this..."

This kind of accountability, this type of regulation must be industry established. As "good" as this Bill in Congress is - it will do very little to truly change anything. But a self-regulating system of accountability can actually have an impact. Look at the cocoa industry in London if you want some ideas. Or if you want to see how bad it can get when people start to realize where their luxury item really comes from...

Speaking of the Congo (love easy transitions!) Happy 50th Anniversary of Independence!

In 1960 Congo finally gained it's freedom from Belgium. What was supposed to be a joyous time - a chance to move forward, turned into The Congo going from one oppressive dictator to another, from being under The Belgium to having their future determined by the other people.

What would have happened if Belgium and the U.S. had let the free/fair elections that made Lumumba PM stand? He wanted foreign entities out, he wanted Congo to have control of their mines (go figure!), he wanted the wealth that was being exported out and benefiting European powers to benefit the Congolese. They stood on the other side of Leopold and saw a brighter tomorrow. They could have become the most prosperous, well-developed country in Africa. They could have been a model for the rest of the continent. They could have broken that glass ceiling and maybe we would have an entirely different Congo today. But in the midst of the Cold War - when the U.S. and others were ensuring the Communism did not spread by any means necessary, when we did not want to be told what to do, when we did not want a "third world" nation to become strong, we had Lumumba killed and instilled Mobutu - and fifty years of massacre, of dictatorship, of genocide, of corruption - too reminiscent of Leopold followed. And look where we are today...

NPR ran this story in the Congo - it's worth a listen.

Texas in Africa posted this video on her site:

The Guardian ran this article on Patrice Lumumba - Congo's first PM who was killed a year into office (emphasis added)

"Much that is incredible, extravagant, ambiguous and unjust has been written about Patrice Lumumba", his friend Thomas Kanza once noted. He was right. Congo's first prime minister, a hero of independence 50 years ago this week, was overthrown and murdered less that a year after taking office. Of all the deaths in that country's terrible history, Lumumba's is the best remembered: a man whose killing doomed hopes of African independence. It is too easy to think that, had he lived, the Congo would have thrived. Lumumba was not a saint and the challenge of running a vast country whose population had been denied basic education by Belgian rulers interested only in exploiting its wealth would have sunk any government. But the Congo, which became Zaire, would have been spared the autocracy of President Mobutu and perhaps the hideous war that followed his death. This week the Belgian king arrived in Kinshasa to mark Congo's half century as an independent state, a peculiar re-enactment of his predecessor's role granting independence in 1960. Then, Lumumba, denied a formal place at the ceremony, denounced colonial rule. Belgium conspired to overthrow him; so did the United States. No one knows who ordered his death, only that Belgian troops were involved in it. Now Lumumba's sons say they want justice. More than that, though, DRC needs peace and prosperity, rather than the continued abuses of its latest discredited government.

That would be the best tribute to its lost leader.

Read Lumumba's speech to Congress in 1960 here.

Louis Michel, a Belgian Member of European Parliament, would do well to read it. Michel who recently told P-Magazine, a publication in Belgium, "Leopold II was a true visionary for his time, a hero... And even if there were horrible events in the Congo, should we now condemn them?" He later said, "To use the word 'genocide' in relation to the Congo is absolutely unacceptable and inappropriate. And yes, maybe colonisation was domineering and acquiring more power, but at a certain moment, it brought civilisation." (site)

Maybe Michel needs to read Hochschild's book and then try to say that Leopold was a hero or that genocide did not happen because of his greed.

The Daily Beast asks if Obama is failing the Congo.

In other news. Want to help Uganda? Send condoms! Change.org recently ran a post about how Uganda would love people to donate condoms so the country can distribute them.

From the post: Uganda's New Vision reports that 95% of the country's contraceptives are paid for by donors. But at this point, AIDS patients newly in need of ARVs are learning the hard way what life is like when donors change priorities. So it's a double slap in the face that, as donors stop funding AIDS treatments, the country is having a difficult time getting its hands on condoms, too. Condoms that — say it with me now — help prevent the spread of AIDS. ... The New Vision says Ugandans use 20 million condoms a month, half of those given out for free by the health ministry.

Uganda has roughly 16 million people who are aged 15 - 64 (or 48% of the population). The campaign to get people to use condoms has worked. Women have more say in family planning. But just giving out condoms is not an answer. I can't quite get to articulating this - I need to read more. But something seems off. Are there programs being done that mention abstinence, or faithfulness, or has it been totted as just wear a condom and do what you want? I find the numbers interesting...

And finally, The Road to the Horizon has been running a series "You've been an aidworker for too long..." Here is reason number five:

..if your memories are indexed in reference to the different humanitarian emergencies:

- "My oldest daughter was born the year after Angola"
- "I got married three years before Bosnia"

- "Just after the Tsunami, my parents finished building their new house"
- "I bought that car the third month after the start of Rwanda"
- "My brother started his company the year before the Iraq war"

It's a Bike, It's a Shopping Cart, It's Both!

2010-07-02T15:27:00.000-04:00

Three words: I want one.

See more of this amazing idea here.

Reprinted from EcoGeek.

It's a Bike, It's a Shopping Cart, It's Both!: "

A cool new folding bike design solves the 'where do I put my bags?' and 'where do I put my bike?' issues of cycling to the store. The Ville, Urban Folding Bicycle features two ample storage baskets and folds into a cart to help you shop.

Designer Hyuk-Jae Chang created the Ville. This great idea gets rid of the need to lock your bike up while you're in the store -- you just take it in with you. The middle hinge allows the bike to fold up and become a perfectly-sized grocery cart. In four steps and the touch of a button, you're ready to cruise the aisles.

When you're done shopping, the bags stay in the baskets and you can pedal home. If you live close enough to a store, it really eliminates any excuse to drive instead of ride. We've seen some cool urban bike concepts and this one, while low-tech, ranks near the top.

Chang designed the bike with Cannondale in mind. I sure hope they're paying attention.

via Treehugger

"Love is the final fight"

2010-07-02T12:40:00.000-04:00

Dr. John Perkins.

Does that name mean anything to you? It should. He is a Civil Rights leader.

Is - as in still leading the fight, the cause that we can create a country that puts the truths we laid out before us - that every man in created equal and blessed with life, liberty and the pursuit (not the attainment) of happiness - before every man, woman and child on our soil.

He is a man who suffered greatly in the 60's. Who moved back to Mississippi to fight for civil rights. He was jailed, beaten, threatened, lost his brother to racism, and yet stayed and tried to change things for the better.

He turned 80 this year. He is an incredible man, a true saint. A man who is humble, funny, on fire for the Lord and still speaks a message of equality that we would all take note to listen to.

I met Dr. Perkins at Duke when I was there last month. He spoke one morning and the room listened with rapt attention as he compared the U.S. today to the Israel of the Old Testament. We have set these amazing tenants out before us and and then failed to fulfill them. We are all in the bondage of that sin. We all have a part to play in that injustice.

He compared the current immigration "discussion" to the Civil Rights era. It's time to make the invisible - visible. It's time to look at the suffrage of those among us, give it a name, and call it into the light. Not be used for political power and leverage. But to say, "I am human too."

Switchfoot wrote a song about/for Dr. Perkins. Watch the images. We have too easily forgotten what the 60's (and before and since) cost us. During one lunch time at Duke Dr. Perkins gave us a history lesson of the South in the 60's - learned more from him in twenty minutes than I did in 16 years of school.

Here is the link in case the video doesn't translate through to facebook.

"I think this is the generation that could actually make our national creed a reality. we hold these truths to be self-evident that all people are created equal..."

The World for Women

2010-07-01T13:55:00.000-04:00

Good afternoon.

Hope you are having a wonderful Thursday. Only one more day until the three day weekend. I am looking forward to the day off, though I have no idea what I am going to do. I went for an interview this morning to volunteer with an organization helping women who've suffered abuse and sexual assault. They do a myriad of programs. I'm excited (and humbled) to work with them. I have known for a while that working with women who've suffered sexual abuse is where I should be. But it's an intimidating world. It's a world full of cowardice (the men who could beat or rape a woman) and pain and a lot of misunderstanding.

I am saddened by how often the victims - the women who were raped or abused - are the ones who face the stigma of what's happened. And yet the men get to walk around stigma free, abusing/using women, no consequences. She suffers in silence or is told it's her fault and ostracized from her community. It's the same with prostitution. We blame the women, call them hussies, sluts, whores, say they wanted it. They patrol the streets looking for easy men to prey on, it's not his fault, men can't be expected to control themselves in-front of a short skirt. But in that patriarchal mentality is the issue.

When i was at Duke a few weeks ago we started talking about the woman at the well. She is dragged out before Jesus for committing adultery. But where is the man? You can't commit adultery alone. We don't know anything before that moment - were they caught together? Did she report a rape and no one believed her? Was her lover in the crowd, holding a stone, ready to end her life for something he participated in?

In 2008 a 13 year old girl was killed for committing adultery. Or so they said. What really happened? She was raped by three men and when she tried to report it - tried to do the right thing - she was charged as an adulteress and killed. The three men? Well, I doubt anything happened to them.

This is wrong. This should make you angry. This should make you livid and irate and outraged at the stupidity of that story.

Does it? Does it make you made? Or can you let it go because it happens over there? Somalia is a difficult place, they don't have their act together, of course you would expect that there?

Seriously?

And what if I told you it happens every day in America. Maybe we don't stone people - but the culture of letting perpetrators get away with rape and abuse still remains. Someone told me the other day that she heard of a woman pressing charges for rape. But she had worn a short skirt and flirted with the man, she led him on, kept drinking, so that wasn't rape, it was regret. I bit my tongue and watched her - realizing that mentality is why these crimes are vastly underreported and how, somehow, we can feel sympathy for the attacker and not for the women they hurt.

Now I will admit that sometimes it's not, sometimes it is regret, sometimes women claim rape or sexual assault or harassment when there isn't any to save face, or pull power or manipulate a situation. And to those women I say stop it. We have worked too hard and overcome too much for you to make it harder for women who were abused to step forward and get the help they need.

The point?

I take a line from a recent Change.Org blog post:

Thirty years after the first UN treaty on women's rights was adopted, as GlobalPost reports today, millions of cases involving beatings, marital rapes, honor killings and genital mutilation still occur every year. Globally, one in three women have experienced some kind of physical violence. For example, in 2008 in France, nearly 160 women were killed by their husbands or partners. That same year, some 1,000 women were killed in Pakistan in cases of violence against women.

When so much of a village, a country, our world depends on women. When change starts at a home, at a community level, often by women, while men talk and debate, or worse, go around shooting each other. When families live and thrive with mothers... Why are we so quick to turn a blind eye to what happens to them? From abuse in the U.S., to prostitution and trafficking at the World Cup, honor killings in India, and laws that allow marital rape in Afghanistan - isn't it time that women get the respect and support they deserve?

Laundry...

2010-06-29T08:20:00.000-04:00

Shaun Groves was in Kenya.

He took this picture of a woman doing her laundry. We did it the same way in Rwanda. By the end I could get the dirt off my clothes, but they were far from clean. It's hard work to wash your clothes by hand. While I was there I was thought about the many things that we take for granted in our lives - dishwashers, washers, canned food - and how, maybe in the "conveniences" of our lives, we've lost the art of community and hard work and allowed our perspectives to become a bit off.

Most things in Rwanda seemed to center around community and fellowship. Even if you didn't want it to. Without fail, I would have a group of people watching me wash my clothes. So do I ignore them or do I engage? Most days (not all) I engaged. Said hello, the kids would come say hi, I made conversation. It was fun. The same thing happened at dinner. While the food slowly cooked over the fire oven/stove neighbors talked. The cooking was done outside, in little shacks, and so everyone congregated in the back area. Imagine a backyard area without fences. People stopped by the house all the time. They would knock on the door and life in the house would stop. You did not do anything while a visitor was there. I made the taboo more than once on walking out on someone who was there to see Pastor. But they were speaking in Kinyarwanda and had come for a reason. If I left, Pastor would stop being distracted and the guest could speak (more) freely, though I had no idea what they were saying anyway.

Today I tossed a load of laundry into the washer and yet seeing this pictures brought a tinge of Rwanda-sickness as I think of the moments in the backyard, the girls teaching me how to do laundry, their laughter rising from the "kitchen" as dinner was prepared.

Mac and PC - something troubling in common...

2010-06-28T14:01:00.001-04:00

Too important no to share:

Protest at Mac Store for Conflict Minerals

2010-06-22T21:44:00.001-04:00

Wish I could have been there....

Reprinted from Enough:

Activists Protest Apple’s Conflict Minerals Problem:

Protesters pressing Apple to commit to making conflict-free products were front and center at the grand opening of Apple’s first store in Washington, D.C., last Friday. The new Georgetown location opened its doors at 5 p.m to a line of hundreds of people waiting for a chance to purchase the latest products and receive a free Apple t-shirt. Enough supporters added to the excitement by gathering at the front entrance with Lisa Shannon, founder of Run for Congo Women and author of A Thousand Sisters. Overtaking the street-side view of the store, protesters displayed a bright red banner reading “Guarantee Conflict-Free.”

The purpose of the event was to educate Apple consumers about the conflict in Congo and the relationship between our electronics, the conflict minerals essential to those devices, and the war in Congo, the world’s deadliest conflict since World War II. As consumers who love Apple products, we must demand that Apple act responsibly and verify that the minerals used in their products are not fueling the war in Congo. We want to be able to continue purchasing Apple products and be confident that they are not helping perpetuate a conflict in which Congolese civilians are raped and killed each day.

As one of the world’s leading electronics companies, Apple has the trend-setting power to influence the entire industry. If every electronics company ensured that the minerals used in its products were conflict-free, rebel and militia groups would be denied the estimated $180 million they make each year and use to terrorize the communities of eastern Congo.

The advocates who turned out in front of the new store on Friday conveyed this message by handing out informational brochures and talking with people in line about Apple’s use of conflict minerals in their products. Other activists held signs that read “iPhone4Girls in Congo” and “I’ll Pad You on the Back for Conflict-Free.” The crowd was very interested in the issue and a few customers said they planned to email Steven Jobs directly or mention the cause before purchasing their new iPads and laptops. The protest at the store opening spread awareness to Apple consumers and turned up the pressure on Apple to commit to guaranteeing conflict-free minerals.

Our friends at Campus Progress produced this great video from the event, and additional photos will soon be available on our Flickr page. Visit Enough's RAISE Hope for Congo campaign to learn more about how to get involved the movement to help end the conflict in Congo.

Thanks to all who joined us!

Dads Can Fight Slavery

2010-06-21T11:31:00.002-04:00

Change.Org posted the following list of things Dads can do to fight slavery. It's a good list. We can all play a part in stopping the slave trade - and this is a practical list for an effort that too often becomes women focused and women led.

The biggest thing dads can do to end slavery - stop buying porn and purchasing women. Also, change the culture and stop making it "cool" or okay to do so. Stop making it fun to stand there with your friends and turn women into objects with your words and actions - would you want someone discussing your little girl like that? Also, teach your sons to respect women, to not purchase porn, to protect and defend the freedom of all people (see #5). Dads are influential and kids listen (even if we act like we don't.) So start by saying something...

Reprinted from Change.org

10 Things Dads Can Do to Fight Slavery:
I've noticed one common thread in all the Father's Day commercials this year -- they seem to think dads are kinda doofy. They pogo stick into traffic, spill food all over the place, and generally need a lot of guidance. Well, I disagree. I think dads are amazing, and they have the power to change the world and end slavery through their own lives and their families. So in honor of Father's Day, I've put together a list of ten things amazing dads can do to end slavery and make the world a freer, better place for all of us:
10. Talk to your kids about slavery. As a dad, you already know the importance of educating your kids outside school. Talk to them about human trafficking and modern-day slavery in a way it connects to them. For younger kids, simply learning that not all other kids have what they do is a big step. Older kids and teens can get more involved with some of the tougher issues.
9. Become a Defender. The Defenders is a campaign by men, for men, declaring that real men protect and defend women and children -- they don't buy and exploit them. You can check out the Defender's pledge here. Consider celebrating Father's Day by standing with dads all over the world who are fighting human trafficking.

8. Switch to Fair Trade coffee. When you hit up your local Starbucks (or even better, an independent coffee shop) ask them for Fair Trade coffee. If they don't have it, ask if they can get some. Companies respond to consumer requests. If your office supplies coffee, ask if they can switch to Fair Trade as well.
7. Make your home a safe place. When I was growing up, my dad didn't let my friends and I get away with too many shenanigans at our house. But they all knew it was a safe place for them to come, whether things were really bad at home or they just needed an adult to talk to other than their parents. Sometimes, having a safe place to go can be what keeps a kid off the street and away from traffickers.
6. Build something for an anti-trafficking organization. Whether your skills are with a nail gun, an accounting book, or a guitar, volunteer to build or create something for a local anti-trafficking organization. Fix up an old car, create a fundraiser, or revamp their website -- whatever you're good at. They and their clients will thank you.
5. Be a role model for boys and young men. Human trafficking isn't a women's issue, it's everyone's issue. Teach boys and young men about respecting women, having healthy relationships, and treating women as equal. Even just modeling that behavior in your own life in front of boys can make a huge difference. More more info, check out this great group.
4. Demand better gadgets. And by better, I don't mean longer battery life. Ask the companies that make your favorite gadgets about how they monitor their supply chains, and demand they do what it takes to give you slavery-free electronics.
3. Host a 'Daddy Daycare' fundraiser. How much would you pay for a free Saturday afternoon alone or with your partner? Host a fundraiser where you watch and entertain the children of friends for a day, for a nominal fee. The cash goes to prevent trafficking, your friends have a relaxing child-free day, and you will earn a well-deserved nap at the end of the day.
2. Rethink your t-shirt collection. Pay attention to where your clothes come from, and I don't mean from a fashion standpoint. Try and buy from brands and stores which support fair treatment of workers and human rights. You have the power to make sure the shirt on your back doesn't take one off of someone else's.
1. Volunteer as a family. Teaching your kids to give back to their community is one of the most important things dads can do. My dad did it for me (and still takes groups of kids to build houses for Habitat for Humanity), and I'm so glad he did. Volunteering with my family really helped me learn the importance of being a responsible citizen of my community, my country, and the world.
Thanks so much dad, for all you've done for me and for everyone else who needed you. Happy Fathers Day!
Photo credit: DVIDSHUB

Oil Spill Affects

2010-06-16T11:55:00.001-04:00

It is amazing how much of what is going on in our world man created. Regardless of what you think on the issue of climate change - two things are absolutely true. 1) our world is changing - our ecosystem is breaking down and we (man) did that. 2) Those being most affected by these changes are not the ones responsible. I think of the poor in third world and the animals. Below is photos of what the oil spill has done to life on the coast. Now, I will almost always advocate for the care/freedom/etc. of people before animals, I think any society must understand true intrinsic human value before it can value the earth and all of God's creations.

But for today - there is something you can do to help. Like the earthquakes in Haiti, the clean-up in the Gulf will talk years - it is a reality we cannot let get swept under the rug. We can do something - there is a link for the National Wildlife Federation at the bottom.

Manda

Reprinted from Art & Lair

Please Help...: "

What Was....

What Is....

What a thing we have created. What an extraordinary horror our rapacious need for cheap, endless energy hath unleashed; it's a monster of a scale and proportion we can barely even fathom.
Because if you're honest, no matter where you stand, no matter your politics, religion, income or mode of transport, you see this beast of creeping death and you understand: That is us. The spill may be many things, but more than anything else it is a giant, horrifying mirror. -Mark Morford.

Please donate to the National Wildlife Federation, by clicking the link below.

Help Protect Wildlife Impacted by the BP Oil Spill

"Trafficking Is Torture"

2010-06-07T13:18:00.000-04:00

I saw this video last year and it struck me cold. Amanda at Change.org wrote about it today. There is something disturbing about it, something horrible, you want to turn your gaze but feel what she is saying is too important. She called it, "One of the most courageous public service ads I've seen about human trafficking."

She later writes (emphasis added):

Repulsion is something those of us committed to ending modern-day slavery need to tap back into, and videos like this can help. We need to remember that behind all the discussions of legislation and policy, behind all the online petitions with their euphemistic wording, there is a woman with her face contorted in pain because she is being raped by hundreds of men. There is a man who is falling to his knees with heat exhaustion and malnutrition in a field. There is a child who will never go to school, play, or dream because all she does is cook and clean.

And it's true. I spent the last week at Duke at a conference on Reconciliation. And as I process it more I will start to write about it here. But at one point someone said that we (policy makers, advocates, academics, etc.) sit in insular rooms with no windows, with our privilege and our knowledge and turn human suffering - human indignity, trafficking, death, decay, poverty, etc - into an academic exercise, words on a page, a project, one more thing to do in our day. But to get outside the insular, to sit with a child who has been raped repeatedly daily, to be with a mother with AIDS, to sit with a person whose family has been ravaged by war - that, that is what counts. There are people on the other side of our policy and laws and crusades. And that gets lost in the shuffle.

I have mixed feelings on the video, but if Emma Thompson getting "raped" on a bed makes us start the conversation again, brings awareness, and somehow in the horror of what is presumed makes others willing to stand and get involved - then I'm am hesitantly okay with that.

Oscar Romero once said that "We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs." And I hold that up against this ad, against those working to a call and response and, as I had to do many, many, many times last week, quietly ask what our motivation for abolition truly is.

_ _

Advocacy: Not About You.

2010-05-18T16:00:00.002-04:00

How do you do advocacy? How do you care for those who are in the midst of what many of us would call hell? How do you do so while giving dignity and individuality and human-ness back to the people you are trying to tell others about without making it all about you.

While I do not think there is just one way to do advocacy - I think we need to be careful that our efforts don't become more about us that those we are trying to help (not save!) and that is #1:

You are not here to "save" these people. You are not God or a savior; you alone will not end the war in the Congo, Darfur or end the spread of AIDS. You are a piece of a larger movement. So, keep that in perspective and do not put yourself into their suffering and pretend that you understand...

Which leads to #2:

It is not about you, ever. You do not know half of what you think you do, and if you think that coming out of some State University where you have sat behind a desk and read Heart of Darkness and White Man’s Burden suddenly makes you an expert on the Congo and you can fix in 5 minutes what hasn’t been solved in 15 years – then you need a reality check and to realize there are people who have lived in this muck for 15 years and can’t tell you how to solve it, because if it were that easily believe me someone would have thought of it by now.

There is a man in the Sudan who is combating the LRA by brandishing a gun himself and pulling kids from the LRA and placing them in an orphanage to be cared for. The fact this man is doing this all in the name of God is a different post for a different day, but I think these paragraphs alone points to why were started with #1 and 2:

His story sounds more like a myth than reality when you first hear it: a white guy from the United States carrying an AK-47 in the back country of Sudan fighting crazy rebels with his small band of Sudanese soldiers. Sometimes the odds of him coming out alive is slim to none, such as the time when it was five against 200. But the unconventional pastor will explain time and again that God’s protection is the reason why he is still alive. He will also state that he is fighting God’s battle.

“Even in my wildest years, I had a passion for fighting another man’s war that continues to this day,” Childers writes in his new book Another Man’s War: The True Story of One Man’s Battle to Save Children in the Sudan. “I loved fighting then. And I still love fighting now. The difference is today I’m fighting for the children and families God sent me to protect.”

I, as a Christian, am weary of people saying they are fighting "God’s battle." And the more I find out about God the more I think the “violence will only understand violence” is just a bunch of self-centered nonsense that people use to justify their own need to carry an AK-47 and play Rambo in the jungle. My God is a god of love and quiet action - more Mother Teresa less crazy man who is only making things worse.

Then there is Mia Farrow who went on a hunger strike to show her solidarity with the people of Darfur (see #2). After 12 days her doctors said it wasn’t safe for her to continue so she passed the responsibility to Richard Branson, who is quickly becoming one of my least favorite people because of the way he gimmicks advocacy and uses being trendy and hip to act like he cares (sort of like these guys). But as Wronging Rights put it, “Response from Darfur: "Sh*t, we can do that? I'ma get a sandwich. Eritrea, you're up!"”

I started this post last year, sorry for the dated materials. A post by Texas in Africa brought it all back

"There's a big difference:

between saving someone and empowering her.
between aiding someone and enabling him.
between creating dependency and establishing ownership.

It's that simple. But making it happen is oh, so complicated." (via)

I got into a (infuriating!) conversation a few years ago with a couple friends about advocacy. I hate (HATE!) organizations that use marketing to turn people into causes or tag lines - that take someone's life and reduce it down to an issue or an easily solvable problem that we in American can "fix." That is #3 - keep the humanity and dignity in the people you are serving. You are serving them, and the best service starts from a root of love, so why would you reduce someone you love to a commodity? Is that love or respect? No, its selfish.

Reducing kids to a cup of coffee is not okay. Reducing a girl who has been trafficked into a cliche isn't either.

My friend said you have to get above the noise and get people's attention. I said you need to treat everyone with respect and dignity and that the ends do not justify the means.

Girls being trafficked and prostituted in Cambodia aren't mine to save. They aren't. The need help, sure. And someone to raise money, okay. They need access to social services, medical help, job training, a safe place to stay and counseling. But none of those things require me to "save her!"

Texas in Africa wrote this too about why we feel we can "save" Africa in-particular, but I think it applies globally as well. And, again, it all goes back to #1 - we have to be sure that our efforts to do good don't become all about us and end up doing more harm than good.

Kristof and the Congo

2010-05-12T09:54:00.000-04:00

A little while ago, NYT's columnist Nicholas Kristof named a rape victim in one of his columns.

Here is a summary:

(N)o humanitarian crisis generates so little attention per million corpses, or such a pathetic international response.

...

"There were six who raped her. One raped me, too."

The soldiers left Jeanne and Chance, tightly tied up, and marched off into the forest with Jeanne's two daughters as prisoners. One daughter is 14, the other 16, and they have not been heard from since.

...

Jeanne and Chance contracted sexually transmitted diseases. Like other survivors in areas that are accessible, they receive help from the International Rescue Committee, but Chance still suffers pain when she urinates.

....

Counselors say that most raped women are rejected by their husbands, and raped girls like Chance have difficulty marrying. In an area west of Lake Kivu where attacks are continuing, I met Saleh Bulondo, a newly homeless young man who was educated and spoke a little English. I asked him if he would still marry his girlfriend if she were raped.

"Never," he said. "I will abandon her."

A girl here normally fetches a bride price (a reverse dowry, paid by the husband's family) when she marries. A village chief told me that a typical price would be 20 goats — but if the girl has been raped, two goats. At most.

There was outcry (1, 2, 3, 4 - to name but a few)

Kristof wrote this in response.

"(L)ikewise, I didn't include the home town of the women involved. My decision to use names also reflected the isolation of the areas involved. In last Sunday's column, for example, the dateline was Kalehe, the nearest "city," but the individuals I wrote about live a five-hour hike from Kalehe. Nobody in the area ever sees any newspaper or the Internet. Indeed, many had never heard of President Obama, and some of those who had heard of him didn't know if he is black or white. The people there speak no English and minimal French. In short, it seems to me that there's zero chance that the column or video is going to reach these communities in which these women live or haunt them in any way. (They realized that, and it's one reason why they were so forthcoming.). This issue reflects a broader tension between journalists, whose instinct is to publish, and aid workers engaged in protection issues, whose instinct is to shield individuals. My own take is that journalists are sometimes too quick to publish, and aid workers sometimes too quick to protect individuals. ... I identified the Congo rape victims by name because I had permission and because I was completely confident that they wouldn't get in trouble, and because I think that's the only way to raise the issue on the agenda and stop this kind of sexual predation. But plenty of people will disagree, and in any case I'll be consulting with editors on these identification questions in the future. I also welcome your thoughts on this topic, particularly from aid workers, assault survivors and journalists."

I wanted to respond when this all went down - but decide to wait a bit. I understand his point of wanting to bring a face and a name to what is happening in the Congo, but what happened to the whole "we will call her Sarah" for keeping the victim's name a secret while giving her a name? And what is that BS about her never finding out? No one will ever meet one of the girls who goes through the assessment center in Cambodia - but we still don't take a picture of her and show it all over the U.S. Why? R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

I also think there needs to be a feeling that these girls were used again by Kristof to sell a story. It is unimaginable (and yet happens 100s of times daily in the Congo). How he described the rape (which I did not include) makes me cringe - and I know this stuff.

It was wrong - plain and simple. For Kristof's desire to sell a story and "raise awareness" about the Congo he raped these girls again by selling their stories, exploiting it and using it to prove a point.

The story could have been just as good without publishing the girls' names and pictures.

Nii Akuettheh wrote a letter to Mr. Kristof - not about this article, but about his writing on the Congo in general. While praising Kristof for his work, he ponders why the Congo has received so little attention.

His conclusion: Unlike Haiti, the Congolese catastrophe is man-made. And unlike Darfur, the villains in Congo are not enemies of the West. ... hus in the Congo, the West collectively will find the Messiah role impossible to pull off. Consequently, it is expecting too much that Western leaders would voluntarily confess their costly Congo blunders to their decent, no-nonsense publics, even if the Congo death toll has exceeded six million.

He encourages Kristof to get involved in the "Break the Silence" campaign and bring awareness to that measure, made up of Congolese in the U.S. to end the war in their country. It takes the spotlight off Kristof (gasp!) and puts it on the Congolese. Turn people towards an organization that is working in the Congo - make it a collective effort not just about one man. In his original article Kristof offers NO ways for you to help women in the Congo who have been raped. He doesn't tell you about Women2Women or the Panzi hospital, or any of the dozens of other organizations working there. He doesn't tell you to call your representative and demand that H.R. 4128 gets passed. He does nothing but shock you by how brutal the girls were raped and then tell you they have no hope.

What good does that do anyone?

Friends of the Congo had four suggestions of things that Mr. Kristof could do to help end the Congo.

Number One - Listen to the Congolese. - Not use, exploit or name in a story - but LISTEN.