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Randy
OK AC Youth
March 2013

Traffic:

It’s not just cars stopped on a highway,

Human trafficking;

Its not out there

It’s not someone else’s problem

It is here,

It is now!

It needs to be stopped.

Voice:

It’s not just a reality show

Making your voice heard:

It’s not just in the bathroom

It can make a difference.

It is here

It is now

It needs to be heard.

At the crossroads of Human Trafficking

My voice must be heard in DC

In Oklahoma

At Annual Conference

It’s time to pay attention to my surroundings

People will hear my voice on Human Trafficking.

I Am Not For Sale

Tiffany
Kansas DOC
March 2013

I AM NOT FOR SALE.

I am not something to be owned.

I AM NOT FOR SALE.

I am a human being.

I am just like you.

I AM NOT FOR SALE.

I am a person with feelings.

I am a daughter and sister.

I AM NOT FOR SALE.

Don’t treat me as though I am.

Change My Ways

Kaitlyn
Kansas DOC
March 2013

When I hear their stories my heart breaks. I am ashamed of our society. Of what our world has become. What these women and children have gone through is something one can’t even comprehend. Being put through what they were put through, I would not have survived.

I will change my ways. The make-up I buy, the clothes I wear, and the shoes I put on my feet will not be the same. Innocent people are being forced to do hard labor just so I can have a certain brand of a product.

Horror of Human Trafficking

Cameron
Kansas DOC
March 2013

I've learned about the horrors of human trafficking. Some things I will never forget. I have felt like there is nothing we can ever do to fully get rid of this problem. First we need to fix our society and figure out why people feel like they can traffic another human. Who are the people who use trafficking, the “johns” who buy prostitutes as young as 12, or those who abuse free labor. It sickens me to think that these things are okay. It sickens me that this happens.

They Did Not Choose That

Young Adult Participant
RISE: A UM Faith Community
March 2013

It’s not fair what family we are born into. I didn't choose my parents or my situation. My kids didn't choose me. The kid who is beaten daily by his father did not choose. The child sold into slavery so her family can eat did not choose that. The mom who has to sell her body to feed her kids did not choose that. The child who’s parents who are being deported did not choose that. The boy who has to run home in fear of being shot did not choose that. The girl who has a warm bed did not choose that. Where I was born I did not choose that, but I choose now to speak up, to stand with and fight alongside those who did not get to choose.

Today's the Day

Adult Participant

Harrisburg UMC

October 2012

 

Blessed, ignorant, oblivious, unaware.

Who knew this could happen in my corner of the world.

I never saw it, I never knew.

But wait-my bubble has burst- no excuses exist.

I cannot pretend that I just don’t see.

It’s time to do something.

Time to get off my chair.

Time to show them I care.

Now-it’s never too late.

Today’s the day!

Concept of Human Dignity

Laura, Adult Leader
UCM Columbus
May 2012

My name is Maria, the same name as our holy virgin mother. I always imagined that because Mary was my mother and the queen of heaven that somehow made me a princess in God’s kingdom. That was when I was 5 years old. Now at 13 I’m not even sure if I’m a child of God anymore. Instead I feel like the blood red stain of sin that is too dark to enter the kingdom of light let alone be its princess. The things I’ve been made to do are so dirty, so shameful, that Carlos tells me no respectable person will ever want anything to do with me. He laughs and says “forget about God. He abandoned you a long time ago Chica. You’re nothing but a whore, why would God want anything to do with you?” I pray that he was wrong. Every day I pray that somehow God will still hear me, forgive me and lead me across the deadly dark desert like Moses led his people from slavery to freedom. Would God send me and girls like me a Moses? Would God bother to send a prophet to free a bunch of sin stained whores?

Click

Seminar Participant

West Ohio

Click.

So simple a noice.

So simple an oppression.

She’s having fun.

She wants ‘it’.

They defend.

But being promised a fix

If she does just 1 more flick

“She’s having fun.”

Having your sexuality

Priced on a little orange sticker.

“She wants that.”

Those girls you enjoy

May be drugged and beaten

And certainly desperate.

Perhaps that click

Comes not only from your

Computer mouse

But from the shackle

Being locked

On a life.