Nathan George

Just a moment

It starts with a change
So outwardly insignificant
That no one would notice
Except the person
Behind you in the aisle.

Just a moment
When instead of seeing
Rows of labels
On a supermarket shelf
You imagine the people
Behind them,
Tilling the earth,
Sowing the seed,
Gathering the crops.

And you pause,
Wondering,
What their names are,
Where they live
What difference it will make

If your hand picks up
This box instead of that,

Wondering: how do I
Love these neighbours?
Can I help change
This child’s long journey for water,
Her mother’s lack of healthcare,
The prospect her father faces
Of another year unable
To feed his family well?

Just a moment.
And the person behind you,
Her impatient baby
Squirming in the trolley,
May never realise
That in that brief hesitation
A life hung in the balance.

Christian Concern for One World

Today I interview Lieutenant John Vanek on the Human Trafficking Task Force of the San Jose Police Department. I first met John at the Freedom Summit. What I appreciated most about him was that here was clearly someone on the front lines of the fight against trafficking, measured in his use of language, able to partner with all sorts of different organizations to get the job done, and in it for the long haul.

NG: John, tell us what your role is and how it fits into a national law enforcement effort against human trafficking

JV: Since 2005 the San Jose Police Department has been funded through a grant from the United States Department of Justice to create and manage a multi-agency, multi-disciplinary anti-trafficking task force. We were one of the original agencies to receive this grant. The program now includes about 40 such task forces across the country. I’ve managed the program since 2006.

The program is designed so local law enforcement agencies organize task force representatives from a variety of local and federal agencies. Our task force includes representatives from our department, the FBI, ICE, the United States Attorney’s Office, U.S. Department of Labor, our District Attorney’s office, and other local law enforcement agencies.

We work in collaboration with the South Bay Coalition to End Human Trafficking, a collection of victim-services providers. The Coalition is also funded by the Department of Justice, and we have formal agreements to work together to identify and rescue victims of trafficking. We also work on training local law enforcement officers in recognizing trafficking victims or situations, and we also put a lot of effort into raising the public’s awareness of trafficking.

I’ve been very fortunate. My role with the task force has given me the opportunity to engage a large number of governmental and non-governmental agencies across the country. We work closely with the Polaris Project, who maintains the National Human Trafficking Resource Center and the 24-hour National Human Trafficking Reporting Hotline (888-3737-888).

All of the task forces are working toward a better understanding of how we can all share expertise and information to best assist victims and investigate cases.

NG: What is the most shocking thing you have become aware of in the course of your work?

JV: I often hear comments about how shocking, or terrible, trafficking is. While that is true, in 24-years of police work I’ve seen too many terrible things. Being a victim of violent crime is a terrible thing, whether the victim has suffered sexual assault, domestic violence or other trauma. I really try to avoid comparing tragedies.

That said, the scope of slavery, worldwide, is amazing, with estimates that as many as 27 million people are enslaved today. As I began my involvement in the anti-trafficking movement, another element that surprised me was the socio-economic scope over which trafficking occurs. Trafficking occurs everywhere. One of my favorite sayings is, “If you think you don’t have trafficking in your community, your not looking for trafficking.” In the trainings we give, we try to get people to understand that they have to closely examine the cultural and socio-economic make-up of their communities. Doing so may give them a better idea of how trafficking may be discovered. Trafficking looks different in different communities.

NG: You must see some egregious crimes against people in the course of your work. What gives you the most cause for hope in tackling trafficking?

JV: What gives me the most hope, and makes my current work so rewarding, is the level of commitment of so many people within the anti-trafficking community. It is important to understand that our nation’s response to trafficking is really just ten years old, starting when Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in 2000. And much of the support for victim-services and law enforcement task forces began around 2005.

So both from a governmental and non-governmental standpoint, most of us have been learning about trafficking as we’ve developed programs, investigated cases, and discovered how victims are exploited. Human Trafficking is the most complicated subject in law enforcement I’ve encountered, and outside of law enforcement it is just as complicated. Victims of trafficking have unique needs, and agencies that don’t have a history of working together need to learn how to do so, because no one single agency can assist a victim or investigate a case. We all have to work together to raise awareness and understanding of trafficking.

So many of the people within the anti-trafficking community are really dedicated and energetic, and just working to end slavery. This work brings together people and organizations with really divergent views on other subjects, but we are all abolitionists.

I can tell you that in all of my varied experiences in law enforcement, I’ve never partnered with social entrepreneurs like Trade As One, collaborated on a training project with Stanford Medical Center like we are now, worked with so many different federal agencies and victim services providers, or such a wide variety of faith-based organizations. Fighting slavery brings me and my partner, Officer Jenn Dotzler, into contact with all of these. The people we meet are truly inspiring to me. They give me faith in the future. And after 24 years of policing, I can use all of the positive energy I can find.

NG: What can we do to help your efforts and those of your colleagues in similar positions in police forces around the country?

JV: Talk about trafficking within your communities. Not just your neighborhood communities, but your work and faith communities, too. Raising awareness can help law enforcement agencies understand the importance of this issue, and make anti-trafficking work a higher priority. Task forces like ours’ offer training to law enforcement. Ask your local police or sheriff what they are doing to assist victims or investigate potential cases.

There are several great sources of information on trafficking, including the Polaris Project website. (www.polarisproject.org)

I also believe we all need to continue our personal study of trafficking; how and why it occurs, how is it linked to supply and demand both in labor and sex trafficking, and how we as individuals can be unwitting beneficiaries of slave labor, and how we impact slavery in the course of our lives. We all need to work together if we want to abolish slavery.

In yesterday’s blog post I mentioned that I thought that fair trade’s potentially largest impact could be the demonstration to corporations that there exists a large and profitable sector of the population that cares deeply about how people in the supply chain are treated.

One of my friends, Justin Dillon, singer, songwriter and the creator of the widely acclaimed and influential film Call and Response, is doing fantastic work in this area. Take a look at a great little video he has produced on this subject.

He is mobilizing people to get major brands to sit up and take notice of the fact that a lot of people care about how people are treated in the supply chain. Go and check out his website and get involved

I wanted you all to have a chance to hear from him on what he has learned on his road of getting involved and making a difference in the world. Here’s Justin:

5 THINGS I HAVE LEARNED ABOUT ACTIVISM

In the last 5 years I have had the opportunity to dip my feet into the rushing rivers of full time activism. When I started down the path to finding my own response to the horrors of human trafficking, I had no idea it would lead to directing a motion picture and creating a global campaign against force labor. I’ve learned that activism is not a profession, it’s a practice. For what it’s worth, I’ve compiled a few of the things I’ve learned.

1. Its Judo, not Karate
I used to think the way to fight injustice is with brute force. I’ve come to learn it’s more nuanced than that. One of the greatest maneuvers we can pull in fighting injustice is to use the opponent’s force against them. For those who profit from forced labor, the most strategic move I can make is to hurt their business. Sure I want to see them pay in other ways, but hurting what concerns them most is the greatest shot at creating systemic change. It’s not about what makes me feel good, it’s about acting with the end in mind. Advocating for tougher laws on pimps and johns (punter) may seem a step removed, but it’s a more effective move. Strategy above impulse.

2. I dost protest too much
Gary Haugen makes a quote in my film about how most of us are oblivious to human rights injustices, but when we learn about these injustices we tend to fall into a paralysis of despair. Neither of these two conditions are helpful. It’s easy to get upset and want to do something extreme about injustice, but extreme and dramatic opportunities to help are rare. We need to be honest with ourselves about how much we really care about injustice. Will we become part of the growing consumer mass demanding slave-free standards from the companies we buy from? Are we willing to adjust large areas of our lives to see change? Most are not. But it only takes a few who are to start a movement.

3. Slow and Steady wins the race
Reacting to something never gets a strategic result, but responding does. Our appetite for change is sometimes greater than our capacity to live in the trenches of the change-makers. We need to cultivate an activist metabolism, which allows our passion to burn over long distances, rather than short sprints. There has never been a human rights movement that was wrapped up in a week.

4. Obstacles vs. Opportunities
Seeing obstacles is easy. It merely takes a keen sense of the obvious. Of course there is disease, poverty, and injustice all around us. And yes, it’s very difficult to make a dent. Those who only see problems seldom solve them. It’s those that carefully look at a problem and find slivers of opportunity that gradually fix it. When I get overwhelmed its usually because my view is blocked by seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Its at that point that I need to back up and look more carefully for the opportunity to change the problem, and run after that opportunity with all my might.

5. Privilege > Passion
I constantly need to remind myself that it’s a privilege to possess any level of passion to fight injustice on someone else’s behalf. It’s a luxury to be passionate. Most in the world are simply trying to survive. The only reason this is possible is because I happen to live in a place and time where I am not required to fight gross injustices against myself. I am free. I am blessed. And I am firm believer that blessings like freedom and comfort are to be leveraged for others. Otherwise they become tawdry possessions that we take for granted.

In Solidarity,
Justin Dillon

I remember sitting in a small room in Mumbai, India, listening to a woman who led a business close to the red light district that employed women who had come out of commercial sex work. She spoke of how hard it was to change the course of the lives of women with which she worked. Some had come voluntarily out of the brothel to find a different life, to be trained in a skill in making products that were sold internationally. She spoke with an obvious sense of deep sadness of how difficult it was to pour months of care and training into a woman that she took in to the business only to see them for different reasons slip back into the life from which they came. Her focus was on creating enough work to keep the women fully employed. As she shared her greatest need – that of ensuring enough orders to sustain the momentum of their business and keep the women fully employed – this good woman could not mask her personal sense of guilt of not being able to provide for her women the opportunity they needed to keep them away from the grip of their old life.

Her husband worked with law enforcement to expose the trafficking of young girls into brothels and spoke of the very palpable sense of evil and danger that he confronted daily. The whole experience for me was an epiphany, although I did not recognize it as such at the time. The good that this couple were attempting to do in an atmosphere of bondage and abuse was a challenge to my sense of significance in life. Not just whether my life had enough meaning when compared to what they were doing, but I had to ask myself if I had the courage to do something as brave as them and risk looking back on years of labor to ask how much I had really achieved? I did not know it at the time, but those two days I spent with them would alter the course of my future.

I find myself seven years later running a business that exists to create enough work for businesses like that one I visited. Here is how I see Trade as One‘s mission is an important part of a response to slavery:

1. After all the hard and dangerous work of releasing someone from the grips of slavery, if they do not have a dignified source of income that pays a living wage, they can be just as vulnerable as they ever were.

2. The reason why people are trafficked and enslaved in the first place is because they are poor. This poverty deprives them of financial stability and of the protection of the rule of law. It is a noble act to rescue people from drowning in a river. After seeing so many – 27 million slaves alive today – one has to ask the question of why they are falling into the river further upstream. Providing dignified work to the poor allows them to stay well away from its dangerous banks. It stops them from running out of options and migrating or being sold to the urban slums or brothels.

3. Fair Trade is using the market, not charity, to include the marginalized. As awareness and participation in it grows, it becomes an increasingly powerful message to larger corporations that there are a lot of people who are stating with their wallets that the way in which people are treated when they are making the products we buy is a very important issue. This could be the most influential role Fair Trade has in the long term. By proving that a large and viable market exists for ethically sourced products we will be able to change the way the rest of business is done.

4. We need practical, every day actions that we can engage in. Writing a check to a charity that works in this area is great and we need to do more of it. Phoning your senator, yes but once you have taken three minutes and done that, then what? Hosting a film that raises awareness, for sure. We need lots of ways to respond. Fair Trade is a way to decide, on a daily basis if you want, to take small actions that create paths out of slavery. Eating white rice from the Surin co-operative in Thailand in one of the poorest regions of that country keeps communities together and stops them from having to abandon their rural homes and migrate to the city. If everyone made small purchases the collective effect on the ability of organizations like the one I spent time with in Mumbai would be very large indeed.

I attended The Justice Conference in Bend OR at the weekend. It was hosted by World Relief in a difficult to get to (took me 10 hours from Santa Cruz using Horizon) but beautiful part of the country. One thousand people and 45 vendors showed up, a testament to the hunger there is in in the church to hear how individuals, churches and organizations are responding to an authentic gospel by practicing good news to the poor.

The most subversive piece for me was a superbly made 6 minute video where the voices of good and evil were personified and speaking inside the church. It was a scary and sobering reflection on how difficult it sometimes is to tell those voices apart. If i can get permission to show it I will.

Kudos to World Relief for convening such a conference. Many good things will come of it I am sure. For me, just being able to catch up with Lynne Hybels was worth the trip, as well as making a new friend in Shane Claiborne. The caliber of Jesus follower that one meets in the seeking of justice and leading in compassion initiatives is humbling. The friends I have made on my journey in the last five years are among the things I treasure the most.

A talk I gave at Manchester Christian Church, NH

Had a terrific time with friends from AC and churches all round the country yesterday doing the Advent Conspiracy Webcast. Check it out and pass it on. Some fresh thinking on how to reclaim Christmas. We explored fair trade, clean water initiatives, taking bold decisions as church leaders, and inviting the poor to be part of our celebrations.

After taking part in the Advent Conspiracy Webcast I connected with one of the people on the webcast, Nate Doty. We got into an email dialog and I loved his  theological reflections, so he kindly agreed to allow me to share them with you all…

“Jesus’ reading of Isaiah 61 (in Luke 4) is often quoted by teachers/pastors when illustrating Jesus’ commitment to the poor and oppressed.  What is often overlooked in that passage is that Jesus is claiming to be the fulfillment of “the year of the Lord’s favor”.  He is referring to the Jubilee laws which are, in essence, guidelines for God’s people to redistribute their wealth on a regular basis to prevent the concentration of wealth and power which leads to poverty and marginalization.  Slaves were set free and land rights were restored in order to keep a sort of equilibrium or balance that God established between humans, animals and the earth back in Eden.  Jesus is proclaiming this!  Now that is revolutionary!  It starts with the transformation of an individual’s heart which extends itself to interpersonal, communal, and global healing and restoration.

I think the evangelical church in America often gets hung up on the personal restoration of this good news.  I think we need to help people make connections as to how their purchases (and other decisions) affect not just themselves, but other people as well as the rest of creation.  And, as followers, we need to apply the Jubilee ethic to our day to day decisions about what we wear, eat, build with, drive in, etc… — making every decision a beautiful illustration of “the year of the Lord’s favor”.

And to answer your question…  This is not an easy task, but…  I think we need to use clear and honest illustrations that show the effects of every dollar we spend.  For instance, when we buy a pair of Nike sneakers, we need to be better informed as to who made them and under what conditions – how much did that person make  and what can they get for that amount of money?  Who benefited from the profits of the sale, and what do their living conditions (and ours) look like compared to the shoe maker’s?  What impact did the materials used to make the shoes have on the earth, and on animals.  And what effect do the shoes have once we throw them away?  The church should provide this analysis for everything we purchase, from bananas to online downloading of mp3′s to the several bibles many of us own.  It all has a cost far greater than we are probably aware of.  And we must expose injustice before we offer solutions to it.

This kind of economic reality check will leave us in a depressed, defeated, disillusioned puddle of guilt.  And that’s where the effect of sin should leave us – and it does when it comes to other areas we struggle with like substance abuse and sexual immorality (which the church is often good at helping people with!).  And that’s where Jesus comes into the picture and makes his Isaiah 61 proclamation!  We cannot get out of this terrible mess by ourselves!  The same freedom Jesus provides for us as individuals must radiate into our interpersonal, communal, and global relationships.

We need to connect consumers to their purchasing (or not purchasing) power and then connect that to the good news of Jesus’ liberation on all levels of life (Jubilee) and then connect that to practical ways to subvert the current oppressive system with a new, redeemed economic structure (fair trade etc).  The first part of this equation (consumer education) is what I think will grab the attention of the wider audience and force us to reshape our understanding of God’s vision for his creation.”

When we talk about money in our churches, we seem to really only ever talk about our giving and how we should be doing more. In an age of unprecedented wealth – when compared historically or geographically, the current economic woes we face in America are really only ones of wealth deprivation – there absolutely needs to be more giving. Research consistently shows that only about 2% of people’s income is typically given away. We could multiply this by a factor of five before we reached Old Testament standards, let alone New Testament standards of giving beyond the point of when it hurts us and involves serious sacrifice. So before I say what I am about to, don’t get me wrong, we need to see more faithful, bold giving. But what about the other 98%? Does the gospel have nothing to say about that? Why do we never talk about it? Isn’t what we do with that just as much, if not more, of a discipleship issue?

When we talk of compassion and justice, I see compassion as the gateway to justice. Our hearts are moved to empathize with the poor and the oppressed and our wallets are often moved to give. If we are being drawn into compassion by the spirit, I see it often leading then to engaging the mind on issues of justice. Archbishop Helder Camara said “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist.” Systemic injustices that keep the poor in their place, that allow the rich to play by a different set of rules, that deny the poor the rights to be recognized as an image bearer of the creator God. Justice then demands a well thought-through approach.

For every dollar that is given to the church, at least ten dollars are spent in the shopping mall. Justice has everything to say to what we buy and how our products are made and yet we are not paying any attention to it as the church. Four years ago I founded the fair trade company Trade as One specifically to partner with the church in America to get us to think about how we subvert some of the 98% for the kingdom of God. The gospel calls us to live simply, to give generously and to buy ethically. If we read it as seriously speaking to us rich, James 5 is a horrifying indictment of our apathy for and complicity in the abuse of how workers who make things for us. When the church begins to see the other 98% of its people’s incomes as capable of being engaged in the gospel, things get really exciting.

What excites me is that despite being told five years ago that I was crazy to think that the church could be engaged in the area of fair trade (the most memorable and depressing opinion came from one of the country’s leading mega church missions pastors “This won’t work – Americans are consumers first and Christians second”), churches all over the country are getting it – from Willow Creek, to North Point, to Vintage Faith, Imago Dei, Menlo Park Pres. If you want to know more, check out www.tradeasone.com/churches