Shaun Groves
What can you and I do to end slavery?
What I’ve Seen Of Slavery
INDIA 2009. We walked through the open-air brothel in Kolkata as a local pastor explained how the girls in the doorways got from their homes in Bangladesh and Pakistan to slavery in India. Poverty, he said, made them desperate for work anywhere they could get it. They were young – late teens – when they saw ads for job openings in India: housekeeping and hotel hospitality mostly. Sometimes moms and dads sent them away to work, in hopes that they could send money back home.
But the job openings were fake; lures to get women to pay for transport and documentation necessary to begin a new life in India. And once in debt to the “employment company”, the women were forced to pay the debt back – their new life in an Indian brothel usually ending before their twenty-first birthday.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 2008. The men in the field pumped their machetes in the air and yelled in Creole, not Spanish. They were angry that our photographer was snapping their picture without paying them first. But their anger at Americans was older than that afternoon.
I heard their stories, from their own lips that day, and from their children too. They harvested sugar for a U.S. company based in Florida – working 18+ hour shifts to pay off a debt they’ll never be free of. They owe the company for transport from Haiti to the Dominican Republic, for citizenship papers they’ve never received, for their eight foot by ten foot house on the plantation, for food bought at outrageous markups from the company store…their debt grows as generation after generation harvests sugar for Americans.
4 Things You Can Do To End Slavery
Today thousands of people are putting a red X on their hand, their clothes, their cars as a symbol of their outrage against poverty. But we do this knowing that symbolism and awareness alone will not end slavery. Here are four things you can do today to end slavery around the world.
1. Prevent:
There is a well-documented link between physical poverty, length of education and slavery of all kinds. Poverty makes a child – any person – highly vulnerable to all forms of exploitation.
One way to prevent slavery then is to combat poverty by meeting a child’s basic needs for education, proper nutrition, and health care. This is called holistic child development and the highest rated child development organization based in the U.S. is Compassion International. Their methods are scientifically proven to work.
ACTION: For $38/month you can prevent slavery. Go here to give.
2. Pursue:
End It Movement estimates that there are 27 million men, women and children living as slaves today – “more than at any other time in history.” Of all the organizations pursuing justice – working to free those slaves and prosecute their captors – International Justice Mission has been around the longest (15 years), is the highest rated, most transparent and accountable. And they are effective.
ACTION: Make a one time gift of as little as $30 or become a monthly supporter to help IJM pursue justice. Go here to get started.
3. Provoke:
A translator in the Dominican Republic told me that slavery will continue in that country until “we provoke companies to be fair.” Truth is that every time I buy clothes or produce from companies that do not treat workers fairly, I am rewarding bad behavior. If enough of us stop making slave owners richer they will be provoked to fairness.
Start by buying products that are certified fair trade or come from companies whose manufacturing practices have been independently verified as slave-free. I trust the ratings of free2work.org. Click the image below for their ratings of popular apparel companies. Or grab their app, scan a product’s barcode, and get the scoop on its manufacturer. (As a general rule, if something is very cheap for us, it likely came at great expense to someone else.)
ACTION: Buy second-hand. Use the free2work app to research products (or do a simple Google search) before buying new.
4. Pray:
Prayer doesn’t feel like substantive action does it? But if we believe the words of the apostle Paul, it certainly is.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. -Ephesians 6:12
If you can’t give to prevent injustice or pursue justice. If you’re not shopping today for fair trade shoes or avocados. You can still fight slavery by praying for the global staff of International Justice Mission and Compassion International, for those living in the slavery today, for those enslaving others with their purchasing decisions, for better enforcement of anti-slavery laws already on the books…and that today the thousands putting a red X on their hand will move beyond symbolism to substantive action.
ACTION: Could you close your laptop, turn off your phone, and spend the next ten minutes praying to end slavery?
Amanda says:
Excellent post! Thank you!
Kris says:
Thanks for being a light, Shaun. I really appreciate this, and I pinned that grid about the clothing manufacturers. I’ll admit to being overwhelmed by this issue sometimes, but I am thankful to know that the 3 kids we sponsor through Compassion have a chance to avoid this–and I pray that they do.
And yes, prayer sometimes feels like we’re not “doing anything” but I know better, thanks for the reminder. Blessings, man.
Katie @ Imperfect People says:
Free2work has an app! You can scan items to see how they measure up with ethical practices.
Great post I shared on my fb page. Thanks so much!
Shaun Groves says:
Great info! That would be great to have on their homepage you know?
Lindsay says:
Thank you for giving us practical applications and suggestions…things that make a bigger difference than simply changing our profile picture!
Shaun Groves says:
Changing a profile picture or putting a red X on your hand DOES raise awareness we can pray will be converted into action. Just want to be clear that I’m not against symbolic measures at all. But I sure am thankful for the opportunities to take action today too!
Lindsay says:
I didn’t mean to insinuate that I’m against symbolic measures or social media awareness campaigns (without them I never would have met my Compassion kids…). I just mean that, many times, my heart and soul yearn to do more than uploading a new digital file or drawing a red X on my hand, but I’m not always sure where to start. I was simply thankful for a post that outlined practical ways to get even more involved in the fight against slavery.
Shaun Groves says:
Oh, I know, Lindsey. I just have to be extra careful. I’ve learned, it’s never a bad thing to clarify…and clarify some more.
Vicki says:
A day in my second Compassion sponsor tour to the Dominican Republic took us to a “batey” (ba-TAY), a small community that once boasted a thriving sugarcane field. At least, the owner thrived.
What is left? The ruins of many roughly 8’X10′ homes, some of them down to the concrete pads, others standing with walls and roofs of corrugated tin, allowing many gaps from floor to ceiling–and in the ceiling. Snakes, rats, other varmints get in. Some of those dwellings house seven-to-ten people.
Schools meant a two- or three-hour bus ride each way, and they were not great centers of academia. Prostitution, teen pregnancy, drugs and alcohol plagued the community–even among the young people in the project. A voodoo priestess still lived there and practiced her witchcraft, and many of the people still believed in that evil. The small church had been running the project for a few years, but out of all of the families represented, only about half a dozen parents attended the church, and fewer than half of the children had received Christ in their hearts.
I still look on that place as representing the lowest level of poverty–the utter loss of any hope that they would ever be any better off; the lack of any sense of responsibility for the environment in which they lived, including just letting trash lie on the ground and accumulate (pick it up, and more will appear, so why bother?); and overall, a great spiritual darkness. I was depressed for a week, after I returned.
The people who had been in economic slavery continued to live in spiritual poverty.
Vicki says:
P.S. We sponsor children in (I think) eight countries, all through Compassion, because I know that the programs and spiritual base offer the best hope for the children to rise above their circumstances, in Jesus’ name. That does not mean Satan makes it easy. And I think it’s much more difficult in some areas than in others.
Amy says:
Are there stores that sell items that don’t support slavery.
Shaun Groves says:
Absolutely. Lots of them.
Amy says:
How can I find out what those stores are?
I have a feeling the stores I shop wouldn’t be on that list because a lot of the stuff I get says “made in China”.
Brad says:
Downloading the app, sharing this post. Thanks Shaun.
Christina Lang says:
great post Shaun. I really really like the practical ways since I have been wondering what I can do to make a little dent in my corner of this world. I am going to follow up on your suggestions. thanks again!
Douglas says:
Thanks for the reference to free2work.org. The information there seems informative, actionable and practical.
jerri roberts says:
Can you tell me the name of the US sugar company that enslaves the workers in the Dominican Republic? I’d like to make sure that I don’t buy their products.
Shaun Groves says:
I can’t. I don’t want to hurt Compassion Internaitonal’s ministry to those families “employed” by that company. Currently, Compassion is partnering with churches built inside a couple plantations (called “batays”). I’d hate for those churches or Compassion’s work to be on the other side of their fences, you know?
But the sugar industry in general seems more prone to using slave (or too-cheap) labor. The oldest slave trade in the U.S. is sugar. So, research the brands you use and you’ll know if your brand of choice is on the up and up….and they’re probably not.
Kara M says:
Can I just tell you this blog post has bugged me since April! When I shop, I can’t get free2work out of my brain!! We can’t spend a lot on clothes and I now can’t buy cheap w/o wondering if slaves helped make my clothes! So, I either save up for something I know is safe or buy second hand.
Was just stopping back by to see the name of the app! Downloaded!!
Shaun Groves says:
Here in the Nashville area we’re fortunate to have a lot of great secondhand stores. I had to a buy a suit recently and cringed at the thought of researching which brands are made responsibly. And then I saw the price tags of new suits! But I found a store that sells second-hand designer suits for a tiny fraction of the new price. Same with the shoes, belt, and socks that had to go along with the suit.
Gone are the days of spontaneous mindless shopping for me too – so carefree : (. But it’s worth it right? To know that you’re doing no harm with that purchase?