Boys at Gidan Bege, photo from www.gonigeria.org
Wow, what a title! What on earth do these things have in common? Sadly, more than you would think.
At church on Sunday we were reminded that thousands of women (and probably children) will travel or be brought to the Dallas area this week through human trafficking to provide “services” for people due to the SuperBowl. (click here for more information)
My first response, when I heard about this a while ago, was, “You’ve got to be kidding! I had heard about this for the World Cup in S. Africa, but not in the US!” Well, that thought would be wrong.
An article about last year’s SuperBowl stated:
Along with all the fans and the players, the commentators and the business people, the party-goers and the curious, the Miami Super Bowl also drew about 10,000 prostitutes, many of them child prostitutes, or former child prostitutes – “modern-day slaves,” as Ernie Allen, president and CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, calls them – brought to town by their traffickers from all over the country. (http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/97105/20110103/prostitution.htm#)OK, so this is in an issue in the US, but what does it have to do with Nigeria and specifically, with our ministry in Nigeria?
With increasing incidence of trafficking in children, particularly girls for sex and domestic work, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that the incidence of child labour in Nigeria for persons aged 10 to 14 years is approximately 12 million. (Patt, Prof. Martin, “Child Prostitution – Nigeria”, http://gvnet.com/childprostitution/Nigeria.htm, [accessed February 1, 2011])
This is only one of hundreds of articles about slavery and human trafficking in Nigeria. I want to be clear, we do not work with a ministry that is directly involved in saving children from slavery or human trafficking. However, our ministry DOES save kids from life on the streets, from being abandoned or abused, and from death. Some of kids have been victims of abuse and have been in situations that could lead to enslavement. What our ministry does is give them an alternative, a safe, loving alternative, to grow up with people who love and care for them, rather that risk going down a very destructive and dangerous path.
On Sunday, when this issue was being brought up to the church, I was in tears, thinking of all of our kids in Nigeria and the life they may have led if they had not been brought to a City Ministry care center. We cannot wait to return to Nigeria to shower Christ’s love on these kids and to help bring more kids into the family of God.
