It is also a time for us to take these messages to our workplaces, our churches, our schools, our families and our friends.The Director of the National Human Trafficking Hotline # says the first months of COVID-related shutdowns brought a 40-percent increase in crisis calls, while requests for shelter nearly doubled. Traffickers prey upon people experiencing heightened vulnerabilities linked to pandemic-related lock downs, stay at home orders, and job loss. Knowing how to ‘spot the signs’ could save lives.
Someone you know may be in a sex trafficking situation if:
• They want to stop participating in selling or trading sex but feel scared or unable to leave.
• They disclose that they were reluctant to engage in selling sex but that someone pressured them into it.
• They live where they work or are transported by guards between home and workplace.
• They are children who live with or are supported by or dependent on a family member with a substance abuse problem or who is abusive in other ways.
• They have a manager in the sex trade.
• They have visual signs of abuse.
• They work in an industry where it may be common to be pressured into performing sex acts for money, such as a strip club, illicit cantina, go-go bar, or illicit massage business.
• They have an older, or simply controlling parent, guardian, romantic partner or “sponsor” who will not allow you to meet or speak with the person alone or monitors their movements, spending and/or communications. ~ Polaris Project
IF YOU SUSPECT TRAFFICKING, REPORT IT!
CALL THE NATIONAL HUMAN TRAFFICKING HOTLINE # 888-3737-888
and BE SURE TO ADD THIS NUMBER IN YOUR CELL PHONE.
Monday, January 11, is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day.
Please pray the following prayer, daily, and join together in ending modern day slavery:
Loving Father,
We seek your divine protection for all who are exploited and enslaved.
For those forced into labor, trafficked into sexual slavery, and denied freedom,
we beseech you to release them from their chains.
Grant them protection, safety, and empowerment.
Restore their dignity and provide them a new beginning.
Show us how we might end exploitation by addressing its causes.
Help us reach out in support of victims and survivors of human trafficking.
Make us instruments of your spirit for their liberation.
For this we pray through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen