Notes from My Fast for Peace in Sudan

Today I attempted what some who know me well would call impossible, I fasted from food from 9:15 until 5:06. I did this for a very specific reason and though I was not as intense about my fasting (I ate breakfast after the sun was up) as some I found that the lessons I learned today were worth sharing. I wish I could say I had some amazing time of worship and prayer or that I received some sort of clear guidance for my life but I didn't nor was that really the reason for the fast. What I got out of my almost 8 hours of hunger was understanding.

The purpose of my fast was to stand with the Sudanese for peace not just those in southern Sudan but those in northern Sudan as well in this time of uncertainty. For those of you who do not know, this week the southern region of Sudan is voting on whether to remain a part of Sudan or form their own country. This historic week came as part of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005 that ended decades of civil war, strife, rape, and displacement, or at least was supposed to. The agreement called for both sides to make unity look attractive for 5 years and then for south to vote on its future. These last few months have been tense and the next few will certainly be as well. Now is the time for the international community, activists, and people of all faith traditions to work towards peace, reconciliation, and development.

It was with all this in mind that I started my fast this morning praying for peace and cooler heads to prevail. I was shocked at how difficult it was to pray and read my Bible at 12:00 and how much my patience with others was being tried just from lack of food. I thought many times, "This isn't productive. I am getting nothing out of this. Why am I even doing this? Is this to make me feel better about myself?" It was in the final hour when I felt like I wasn't going to make it til sundown that I finally realized why I was doing this. It was to understand. It was to understand how incredibly difficult it is to complete even basic tasks when you can only eat one meal a day. It was to understand how incredibly difficult it must be for a child to go to school and learn when they are not able to get basic nutrients. And it was to understand just how unequal this world we live in is.

I went to the supermarket today because it was the only time I had to buy groceries. Most would say this was a stupid idea, since I have to walk there and back and I was staring at what I couldn't have at the moment. But I think it was the best idea I had all day. I had to stop for a moment and recognize how blessed I am to be able to go to one location, less than a mile from my home, and buy everything I need for two weeks. I also recognized how blessed we are that food is relatively inexpensive here. Now think about that in the context of Sudan and much of the rest of the world. On average southern Sudanese have to walk over 45 minutes just to get fresh water and have been fighting droughts and famines for the last two decades in a country where 90 percent of the population subsists on less than a dollar a day. These stark facts throw into perspective the blessed lives we live in the United States and the immense responsibility that it comes with.

I don't know what will happen over the next few weeks, months, or years but I do know one thing, that we need to stand by Sudan no matter the outcome. We need to make sure that the vote is free, fair, and respected and we need to ensure that the Sudanese are given the support and tools they need to succeed, whether as one country or two. I ask all of you to stand with me in prayer or positive thoughts but also to help keep our government accountable to the promises it has made to Sudan for the coming years.

Reigniting the Abolition Movement

In 1807 England became the first major slave exporting country to abolish the Transatlantic slave trade through the tireless work of individuals such as William Wilberforce. The trade was officially banned in all major importing countries by the end of the nineteenth century. However, slavery still exists today. Currently about 27 million people are enslaved around the world. They make our clothes, pick coffee beans and cocoa, serve food in restaurants, make bricks, and are forced to sell their bodies in cities around the world, all with the constant threat of violence against themselves or their family. Slavery is not as obvious as it was in the nineteenth century but it is right in front of us.

It is so well hidden from us that we watch films such as Slumdog Millionaire and do not realize that we are being shown several examples of child trafficking. The blinded boys who sing for alms, the young girl who is forced into prostitution, these are the faces of human trafficking. It is in front of us daily but we often do not recognize it for what it is.
The trade of men, women, and even children, trafficked both within their own countries and across international borders, generates $32 million annually in profits. This exceeds the black market for arms, and many believe will pass the drug trade in the near future. An estimated 15,000 people are trafficked into the United States each year. Trafficking is different from being smuggled into the country. Trafficking involves the use of coercion, violence, or kidnapping in the moving of a person. A young woman who is told of a job in the United States as a secretary and is brought into the country only to have her passport taken away and is forced to work in a brothel or clothing factory for little or no pay, is a trafficking victim and protected under federal law. Women and children are uniquely at risk for trafficking, eighty percent of those trafficked across transnational borders are women and girls. Seventy percent of female trafficking victims are forced into commercial sexual exploitation.

The problems of commercial sexual exploitation and sex tourism have grown exponentially due to new forms of transportation, information technology, and increased global interaction. It is now easier to get young girls and women out of their rural villages with the promise of a better life, it is now easier for a man from the United States to travel to Thailand for “business” and for him to visit the red light district of Bangkok than ever before. It is now easier, because of the advent of the Internet, to sell minors for sex with anonymity. The resurgence of a global human slavery market presents new challenges.

Legislation alone cannot end this covert, vast trade. It will require the diligence of communities, police officers, and politicians to uproot and destroy trafficking rings, shut down illegal brothels and forced labor farms and factories, and bring the traffickers, pimps, and madams to justice. This will, at first require tougher legislation. By increasing the risk for a trafficker, from a fine or light jail sentence to a long-term jail sentence the trade will become less profitable. On the demand side, increasing the penalty of buying sex or utilizing forced labor will create another situation where the trade becomes less profitable by decreasing demand. These laws, however, will be nearly useless without the commitment of communities and police officers. In San Diego, the police force was one of the first in the nation to be trained in identifying trafficking victims. It is incredibly common for trafficking victims in the commercial sex trade to be mistaken for and punished as prostitutes. The San Diego police department, with the help of local non-profits learned techniques to identify and assist trafficking victims, in a manner that would not endanger the victim or the victim’s family. The expansion of this program to other police departments and other community groups will be useful, at least in the United States, in fighting human trafficking. Internationally, it will vary by country as to the best methods for informing the public and law enforcement about trafficking and getting them to cooperate with international efforts to stop the trade.

Another angle that can be worked by many agencies, organizations, and governments is to aide in a community’s development. Though not all cases are caused by poverty or lack of communication with urban centers, a vast number of survivors are from developing countries and from rural areas. Often these rural communities are unaware of the danger of trafficking or, as is sometimes the case, a child is sold to provide money for the rest of the family’s survival. There are cases of forced labor in which a family is forced to work to repay a loan (taken out at a time of crisis), which can never be repaid, regardless of how much work they do. I saw this first hand in Guatemala last March. A poor indigenous community just outside Antigua suffered from an epidemic, and was unable to pay for medication. A wealthy Guatemalan man told them that he would buy the medicine if they gave him their land deeds. Out of desperation, they handed over their land and are still unable to keep their harvests. They may never regain their land through work. However, there is hope for that community and others. The women called upon the Guatemalan government to teach them Spanish (the indigenous languages are not widely spoken) and now they are able to sell their woven garments and crafts to tourists. This money has been used to educate their children and build medical clinics, thus helping the next generations to come out of the cycle of poverty and exploitation. By providing pathways out of poverty, we reduce the biggest bargaining chip that traffickers have, desperation and fear.

Human trafficking seems like a large, volatile, and dangerous monster to attempt to defeat. And it all seems incredibly daunting and overwhelming to begin all at once, but incrementally we will be able to chisel away at the chains that bind so many and bring to justice those responsible.

Change by Joy Denalane ft. Lupe Fiasco

The inspiration for this blog:

There's so many things to say right now
I got so much on my mind
Look at what is going down
How much higher can we climb
The system that we're living in
Depends on poverty and greed
But people don't need charity
It's justice that we need

There's disrepair
It's surrounding you
And it's worse than it's ever been
We'll overcome
Overcome the things they do
We're halfway there
Cause we know the truth
But living is another thing
We'll overcome
Overcome the things they do
Lift your voice and sing

A change is coming our way
Step by step and day by day
We'll live by all that we say
Step by step now come what may

There's war all around the world
In the name of democracy
Can't tell the rouge from the just
When they bring hypocrisy
I see my sisters on the move
Making sure we all contend
Must've lost something on the way
We reduced ourselves again

Before we go forth
We gotta take 'em back, back
So we can know what we did
Cause if we never know what happened in de past
Then we can never know, that's what it is
If we don't do it for us
We gotta do it for our kids, kids
So they don't gotta relive
See, there's so much happening, it ain't gonna get fix
With singing and rapping and we gotta take action
And turn that preach into practising
Cause what happen back then, will be right back again
But each one teach one, cause we only as fast
As the last one straggling, so help 'em out

Step by step day by day
Said it won't be long, it won't be long
Step by step come what may
I feel it coming on strong
Step by step day by day
We gonna overcome
Step by step come what may
As long as we are one