Human Trafficking Event- personal coment

by Rev. Brian Kiely

Like many in tonight's 80 strong audience, my first reaction to the human trafficking issue and the film Sex Slave$ and another I saw on child labourers harvesting the bulk of the world's chocolate ingredients was: How can people do this to other people? What could possibly destroy our common sense of humanity so completely?

Well, history shows us that exploiting others for gain is as old as human existence. Trafficking in human life is really no different from trafficking in drugs or arms. Drug addiction causes people to do things no less degrading than slavery, indeed, it imposes a kind of slavery of its own. Arms dealing brings violence and destruction to so many parts of the world all in the service of human greed for money and power. And the victims of such violence are often forced into degrading acts just to survive.

So if you can make buckets of money tricking and selling and brutalizing other human beings, why should we be surprised? Why should we be surprised?

There is no height that human nobility cannot reach. But there is no depth that human depravity can reach either.

At tonight's event I certainly had my awareness raised - which is good. I also had my heat moved - which is even better.

I had read about the sex slaves released from the Edmonton massage parlour a few months back. I had read about some offshore workers being exploited here and there, I had even read about the abused nannies now and then. It always seemed isolated. But tonight I was forced to think about the 72,000 foreign temporary workers brought into Alberta in the past few years. I expect that the majority of their situations are on the up and up. I have concerns, though, for it seems a little weird to bring people in for a couple of years, introduce them to our Canadian society and send them packing, but I suppose I will need to look into that one more.

But 72,000 souls. Wow. It's not hard to figure that some of them are forced into really unfair conditions - into slavery of one sort or another... right here...in the country that I love, in the province where I live, in the city where I am raising my children. Yes, I know I should care about enslaved people everywhere in the world, but I am not Atlas, I cannot carry the concerns of the whole world on my shoulders.

But this isn't far away, is it?. There are probably half a dozen massage parlours within a couple of klicks of my nice safe home. There are nannies all over my neighbourhood, there are probably temporary workers in the ubiquitous fast food joints. Who is free? Who is mistreated? Which (if any) are slaves?

The list of 13 actions in the next post are helpful, but the biggest thing I know is that tomorrow, when I wake up, Edmonton will look a little different.