Honor Killings

In his New York Times  column recently Nicholas Kristoff tells about Saba, a young woman who was shot in the head by her father.  Why?  Because she had disobeyed him by falling in love and  marrying without her father’s permission.  It is estimated that over 1000 honor killings take place in Pakistan every year, but very few perpetrators are brought to justice. Courageously, Saba attempted to have her father arrested, but . . . .

You’ll meet Saba herself in A Girl in the River,  nominated for the Oscars’ short documentary award.  Kistoff says whether or not it wins the nomination, it is worth viewing.  This travesty against young women must stop. (I confess I didn’t watch the Oscars)

Pakistan is far away and probably doesn’t seem like an issue in this country.  But I just read Hiding in the Light by Rifqa Bary who faced the threat of death because she dared to . . .  become a Christian.  She was able to keep her faith secret for several years, but when her father found out, he threatened to send her to Sri Lanka to marry an old Muslim man, and the local mosque stood by him . In fact, they are still threatening to sue the American family who protected sixteen-year-old Rifqa when she ran away from home.

Whether it’s honor killing, trafficking, limiting education to boys first or  killing new born girls—the treatment of women and girls in many countries calls us to compassion and action.  I’ve spent over five years writing a biographical fiction about Katharine Bushnell, MD, a Christian activist who investigated and exposed the sex trade in the US and India at the end of the nineteenth century. Lighthouse Publishing tells me the book will be released by December 1, 2016.

 

woman and men created equal

As I finish editing Boundless, the story of Dr. Katharine Bushnell, I’m overwhelmed at the persistence and bravery of this nineteenth century woman. She spent her life exposing sexual slavery and calling on legislators to pass laws to raise the age of consent and outlaw White Slavery (trafficking then.) She was passionate to serve God and to teach about the value He placed on all humanity. The Bible compelled her, at great personal cost, to fight against those who devalued women in her day. And little has changed – I was heart-sick to read about little girls SOLD BY THEIR PARENTS for as little as $10US dollars. Read on. . .

Asia—2014– In Nepal and India, extreme poverty results in malnutrition, disease, illiteracy, and often deep spiritual depravity.
Little value is placed on women and girls in these countries where they are sold into sex slavery by members of their own families for as little as $10 USD, depending on their age and beauty.

They refer to themselves as “the walking dead” for they are without hope. Girls as young as 7 have been sold into slavery. These women and girls are confined in a room called “the cage” where they are beaten, starved, and raped until their will is broken. Then they are forced to service customers to repay their debt–a debt that incurs more in interest than they are paid for their services. those brothels, conditions are filthy and sickness is rampant. Girls who succumb to infection are turned out on the streets to die. (Just like infected girls were turned out of the brothels in the British military cantonments in India in the 1890’s)

Vision Beyond Borders launched its Vision for Women to answer the growing crisis. The safe house they helped fund just 6 months ago is full, and more women are ready to come out of the industry.
Adapted from Mission Network News by Joan Kramer

At least today exposing trafficking does not depend on a lone woman here and there to fight against the evil. The Bible teaches that men and women were created equal in God’s sight, and equal to work side by side: “God created people in his own image; God patterned them after himself; male and female created he them. So God blessed them and told them, ‘Multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. Be masters over the fish and birds and all the animals’ . . . Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was excellent in every way”. Genesis 1: 27-29, 31.

A ready market in the Magreb of Africa for young girls.

Professor Lawrance of the Rochester Institute of Technology said that if he were to visit any number of West African countries “I would have no difficulty, within a matter of hours, in finding a place to procure children.”

While the imagery of a slave market conveyed by the Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, may have been aimed partly at attracting attention, Professor Lawrance said, “it is not a stretch of the truth to imagine where you could buy children, sitting and waiting to be sold.”

Child trafficking is considered such an insidious problem that the United Nations Human Rights Council has assigned special rapporteurs to investigate it for nearly 25 years. The last rapporteur, Dr. Najat Maalla M’jid, a Moroccan pediatrician who specializes in the protection of vulnerable children, said in a report to the council in March that they were more at risk than ever to sexual slavery. “Millions of girls and boys worldwide are victims of sexual exploitation, even though this issue in recent years has gained increased visibility,” she said.In report she issued in December, Dr. Maalla M’jid said that in recent years, the increase of child trafficking has been greater for girls.

Rights advocates say many cases go undetected. Susan Bissell, the chief of child protection at Unicef, said Wednesday in a phone interview that there were 1.2 million known cases a year of child trafficking globally, “and that’s a gross underestimate, because of situations in this context; it’s totally clandestine.”

Rights groups have conducted numerous studies documenting the trafficking of girls and women in Africa, which is often done through deceptive means. In a 2010 report, for example, Human Rights Watch found networks in Ivory Coast and Nigeria that systematically trafficked in Nigerian women who had thought they were being recruited as apprentice hairdressers or tailors or the person who took them would hurt them.”

Ms. Bissell said part of the enforcement problem lay in many victims’ lack of official identities — 230 million children do not have birth certificates, which makes them virtually impossible to trace.
Adapted from New York Times May 8,2014

This evil seems to have no end. Can you imagine what would happen if these perpetrators had grown up in a loving home with parents who modeled honesty and respect for each other? Parents who made sure children were educated–or at least taught basic values like love, kindness, integrity, a work ethic,– and that God, who loves them, created both boys and girls as equally valuable and full of potential?