XVI Refugees: and the Crises that create them

This series focuses on people who are considered unimportant, unworthy of attention, and without inherent dignity. It concludes with refugees, the last group from the parable of “The Sheep and the Goats.” Along with the hungry, the slaves, and the poor, they are counted among the least of Christ’s brothers. He said about them, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me. What you have done for them, you have done it unto me.”

This will consist of three articles: the crisis that creates refugees, the journey they take to freedom, and the welcome they receive. 

Obviously, the most prominent refugees today are the Ukrainians. About 3 million of them have escaped the violence, and the displaced people remaining inside number many more. But there are other refugees on the global map today, millions who are barely remembered or noticed. That is the reason why I turn to refugees in Tigray, Ethiopia; in detention centers in Libya; in Rohingya camps in Bangladesh; and internally displaced persons in Syria. 

In each case, we will see inhumane treatment, abuse, and a blind eye by the powerful. The recurring impression is that concern for their plight is waning.

Tigray Province, Ethiopia

Eritrea and Ethiopia have been at war for years. Thousands of Eritreans have relocated south of the border in the province of Tigray. There they have found no protection. The Eritrean government sees them as defectors, and the Ethiopians see them as the enemy. They are fully exposed to brutality from both sides. As recently as January, heavy airstrikes by one side or the other hit their camps.

In the masses of these camps, many children become separated from their families and are trafficked to other countries. Only 7000 trucks with humanitarian goods have gotten through in the past three years. World Food Program calculates that those represent less than 10% of the trucks needed.  900,000 are at or below the level of food scarcity, and 1,200 people starve to death each day. 

Hope for international relief lessens by the day.

Libya

This country has been a destination for refugees departing its shores for Italy and Greece. The European Union has sent 450 million Euros to the Libyan government to improve the living conditions for the refugees who are detained there. Sadly, the money has been diverted to warlords and the militia, and the centers have become prisons.

The flight of the refugees takes them from their villages to the Mediterranean, to flimsy boats, to “rescue” by the Coast Guard, back to Libya. There, some are incarcerated at detention sites while others are trafficked to other parts of the world. They commonly face extortion, with a price that further impoverishes their families. 

Most of the refugees have traveled from Sub-Saharan Africa. They become subject to abuse, torture, and exploitation. They are trafficked or removed to other camps. They discover racism and the truth behind the frequent warning, “Libya is not safe for Black Africans.” For these people, the information is scarce and the attention is waning.

Rohingya of Myanmar and Bangladesh

Something happened in the year 2017 in Rohingya camps near Burmese villages. Though there is dispute about what the event was, what is not disputed is that it was a spark that set off a cataclysmic Rohingya disaster. Within months, most of the Rohingya population was forcibly displaced, villages were burnt, women were raped, and thousands began their move to safer places. 

600,000 Rohingya remain in Myanmar where they face the brutality of the military. Earlier this week the United States Department of State declared that the Myanmar military was guilty of genocide on the Rohingya. This is but the eighth time such a declaration of genocide has been made by the United States.

900,000 Rohingya have relocated to Bangladesh where they have been placed in huge camps. These are surrounded by barbed wire. They are overcrowded and lack sanitation and sewage. The location of the camps has frequent flooding, landslides, fires, and cyclones. 5,000 of those in the camps do not have roofs over their heads. 

The plan of the Bangladesh government is to move all of them to Bhasan Char, an isolated island in the Bay of Bengal. Rights advocates have pointed out that this will make access to food and other supplies most difficult and egress for medical care almost impossible. The outcry for the Rohingya is rarely in the news and is almost muted. 

Syria

The civil war in Syria began ten years ago. Back then, many Syrians were able to leave the country, going across from Turkey to Greece.

Since that time, the stream of refugees has diminished, but within Syria are over 6 million displaced people. Like the camps for the Rohingya, these camps lack adequate sewage and sanitation. Food and other humanitarian supplies do not get through. Many report that they get one meal a day, some less. Medical assistance is nearly non-existent. Reports tell of mothers no longer knowing why their children die, since there are no diagnoses and no medicines. 

The circumstances in Syria render these internally displaced people as pawns in the geopolitical situation. They may have permission to leave the camps and return home. Those who do, however, are arrested and subject to extra-judicial smuggling and killings. But again, after ten years, we hardly remember the atrocities of Aleppo and the Yazidis. 

Next week we will look at South Sudan. For now, as a conclusion to this dreary report, I turn to Jane Austen and the Psalmist.

“The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.” Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice

“Do not put your trust in princes,
    in mortals, in whom there is no help.
Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
    whose hope is in the Lord their God.”    Psalm 146:2, 5

XIII Seeing the Faces of Slaves

Slavery has many disguises. Each one deepens the malevolence of its evil. Slaves are out of sight. We see no interviews with workers in garment factories, no videos of raids to brothels, no stories of children in mines. All of that is kept behind closed doors. The disguises have a job to play. As a result, we the public are deprived of knowing and then caring.

There are reasons for this pall of secrecy. The conditions which enforce slavery, if known to the public, would horrify. These conditions are seamy, shocking, and subtle. 

The seamy side enters with the advent of streaming. Previously, voyeurs had magazines, novels, and movies. Viewing was thus restricted. With streaming, salacious life has been brought to the digital world. And, yes, it has been monetized. Darkness has brought desecrated wealth to many.

The Philippines initiates the highest volume of streaming sexual scenes. A schematic of the IP sites going out from the hubs in Manila covers the earth. Instantly, what was done in a back room can now be viewed — for a fee — in bars, bedrooms, and brothels around the world. Mark you, the ages of those forced to engage in the scenes begin with pre-teens.

[Source:https://ijmstoragelive.blob.core.windows.net/ijmna/documents/studies/Final_OSEC-Public-Summary_05_20_2020_2021-02-05-055202.pdf?mtime=20210204215202&focal=none]

This industry has a supply chain—people who will become the subjects. Some of these are victims of what are called “left-behind children.” This mainly refers to China where masses have  moved to the urban areas. The lure is for better jobs and more opportunity in the cities than in the rural areas. 

What often happens is the parents make these shifts, leaving behind the children. These become the vulnerable, the fearful, the naive, and the victims of “friends” and “relatives” who will offer them a home and a family. The children follow, only to discover themselves smuggled to places like where filming takes place in Manila. 

The subtle can also be located in China. With the one-child policy in place for many years, the results have been an imbalance of gender. The men outnumber the women to the extent that finding a wife has become difficult. Adding to the problem is the freedom that many women are treasuring, as they become middle-class, wealthy, and enjoying single life. 

One sinister solution has been smuggling women from North Korea into China with the promise of marriage. The fee is hefty—in the thousands of dollars— and is readily paid. They are entering nothing but forced marriages, sexual slavery, and other hardships.

“Snakeheads” was the term for these smugglers in China. They would arrange for women and children to be duped and then moved to countries in the West. The fee was as high as $30,000. Those who made the trip then had to repay the smuggler, basically becoming enslaved in the garment shops, brothels, or other form of forced labor. 

In the mid-2010s the leaders of the Snakeheads were arrested and sent to prison. Since then the mafia-like organization no longer runs under that name, but runs nonetheless.

The shocking piece of slavery is found in children in armies. While the numbers are hard to pin down, the estimate is between 250,000 and 300,000. 40% of them are girls. They are mostly in the para-military armies of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, and other places of war. 

[Source: https://theirworld.org/explainers/child-soldiers#section-5]

What raises the shock level is that many of these children volunteer to join! Some, to be sure, are kidnapped and stolen. But many turn up at the camps and ask to join. Their reality sees the alternatives as grim: scarce food, families without either or both parents, and fear that they might become the target of the marauding gangs. For them, joining the army is seen as the solution to their plight. 

There are grim pictures indeed, but these are pictures rarely seen. Slavery has disguises. The victims remain unseen. Sadly, this sets them apart from God’s Other Children. The persecuted Christians, for example, get hearings, advocates, and stories. The hungry are brought before us by photographers and news stories. But the slaves—the prostitutes, workers who make our shoes, laborers in brick kilns, children who carry guns—they are nearly invisible.

Which takes me to the question I ask at the end of these articles:

What can we do to help them? The right answer is: Weep. “Weep with those who weep,” we are told. But how can we weep for those we do not see?

The rule of thumb goes like this: “Put a face on them.”  Yes, that is what this needs—a way to bring them into the open, a way for us to see their faces, a way to see and hear about their hurts and wounds. Then, what they are experiencing will be as real to us as the faces we see in our own families. And that is my suggestion.

I ask you to put the faces of your children and grandchildren on the slaves at the kilns, the girls behind the doors of brothels, boys in the coal mines. See them as you see your own children. I put the faces of my grandsons on the boys who carry guns or hover over garments. I put the faces of my granddaughters on the girls who are taken and abused.  By this, we remove the disguises.

Do you have sons and grandsons, daughters and granddaughters? No, you would not wish any of this for them. If so, would it not make you weep?

XII Slavery Exposed and Opposed

 

About three years ago my wife and I swung by Kolkotta on a trip between Bangalore and Kathmandu. It was in Bangalore where we visited Asha Kiran, the school for special needs children referred to in one of my previous articles on children. In Kathmandu we visited the woman who introduced us to the Musahar people, the tribe that is the prototype for this series.

In Kolkotta (formerly known as Calcutta) our guide was Madeline Linnell. We knew Madeline through her father, Julian, who succeeded me as Director of Anglican Frontier Missions. Madeline was an intern at the Kolkotta office of International Justice Mission (IJM). What we learned in those days with her made a lasting impression about trafficking and the scarcity of justice.

Kolkotta is the major hub for sex trafficking in all of Asia. The statistics accompanying that status tell of a world hidden and foul. The goal of IJM is justice. Their place of engagement is more often the courts, rather than places of rescue, though they certainly miss no opportunity to bring many out of slavery.

Seeking justice for sex traffickers takes the people of IJM into levels of sordid corruption. The work of IJM is heavy—both by the challenges of their legal efforts and by the resistance from the spiritual strongholds they encounter. Success only comes when victims have courage to speak publicly, traffickers can be caught, and the police do not collaborate with the traffickers.  They work, as Constance says, with fear and trembling, and they know the evil and the evildoers up close and personal.

Two prominent features of the office at IJM stood out.  First, the seriousness of their corporate worship. It is a daily ritual, with a Bible passage and homily, singing, and testimony. The prayers of the day reflect the people they support as well as the the forces they oppose.

Second, the daily routine in the office is livened by tricks—surprises, jokes, pranks, anything that lifts the atmosphere. They even enjoy competition between the separate offices for unexpected shenanigans. 

Both of those features, I do believe, keep Satan at bay.

In our conversation at the IJM office one lawyer brought up the Super Bowl. “Many men show up who put their morals to the side and find a sex worker, probably one who has been trafficked.” That sentiment is often made, but the association of Super Bowl with sex workers may be overstated. The opportunity for the sex trade is certainly high at the Super Bowl but probably no higher than at most other major sport events.

Protests at the Beijing Olympics, however, have highlighted the Chinese genocide of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang Province. In this case the world has pictures of the camps, the trains, and the places of “re-education.” In addition, testimony has come out of the torture and enslavement of this people. 

These protests at the Olympics reflect the growing public awareness of sex trafficking and the power of public opinion against the perpetrators. A couple of examples illustrate this.

In March of 2020 reports came out of forced child labor being used by farmers who sourced the coffee for Starbucks. The company immediately instituted a zero tolerance for such sources. The Philippine government has acknowledged the horrific sex trade going out of that country and has emerged as a key force with IJM in combatting the slave trade there. Uber drivers and airline staff in the Los Angeles area are being trained to spot women who may be trafficked in preparation for the Super Bowl. Massive pressure has turned on large companies like Nike, Apple, and Under Armour whose sources in the past have relied on child labor or slaves.

Still, the on-going presence of slave trade and child labor is pernicious and pervasive. After all, what else can we expect from the spiritual forces of evil and the wickedness of the human heart. Public pressure does not see most of the hidden places where women and children are treated with dehumanizing abuse. (Source: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/reports/child-labor/list-of-goods-print)

Kilns in India, North Korea, Pakistan, Cambodia: In Haryana, alone,  there are about 40,000 children making bricks.

Diamond mines in Sierra Leone, Central African Republic, Congo, Liberia: Children between 5 and 17 work in underground mines in hazardous conditions.  

Fishing boats on Lake Volta, Ghana, Peru, Indonesia: Children must go under water to free nets from stumps and fallen trees.

Coffee plantations in Brazil, Costa Rica, Yemen, Tanzania, Panama, Kenya: Forcibly recruited children may not leave the plantations, are not paid, and have no means to return home.

Brothels: in most countries: A shroud kept by the malice of their pimps hides the sadness of these women. Their number is legion, and their life knows only lies, deceit, and darkness. 

The common theme underlying the millions of people enslaved is quite simple. Owners deceive the families with loans, forcing the enslaved children to work in forced labor until the debt is paid. For forced labor,  Work conditions include long hours, insufficient food, the threat of beatings, and isolation for their families. For sex slaves, they are the possessions of their pimps.

Most of the products from most of these countries are in compliance with fair contractual agreements about age, hours, and compensation. Still, beyond the “most” lie 40 million slaves in the world today. A close look at who they are next week. 

I close with the two questions for us:

What can we do to assist them: One answer is to learn about them. Here are websites that tell their stories. 

https://www.ijm.org/slavery

https://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/forced-labour/s

This website gives prayer suggestions for each day: 

https://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/forced-labour/

What can we learn from them: Two things, both about evil: 1) The power of evil, Satan’s domain clearly exposed. 2) The line dividing good and evil does not separate bad people and good people but goes through the heart of every human being, even ours. At least,    that is what Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said as he reflected on the horrors inside the Gulag and inside his own heart. 

 

XI Slaves. Slavery, and God

This series spotlights several segments of the world that are precious to God but don’t make the news. I call them God’s Other Children.  The prototype has been the Musahar people of Nepal. They are eschewed by their neighbors, abandoned by the government, and ignored by the church. Yet in the eyes of God, they, too, are the very ones for whom our Lord was crucified. 

Others we have looked at are the persecuted church (North Korea), children (on the streets and in war zones), the hungry (Chad), and the least evangelized (Iran). 

Today I turn to a group who are the victims of the deepest depravity of humankind. Though the circumstances of the prior groups are lamentable, what is done to slaves is barbarous, cruel, and savage in the extreme. 

Over the next weeks we will learn about slaves in the mines in Pakistan, kilns in India, the fishing industry of Ghana, trafficking in the Philippines, factories in Bangladesh, and the Super Bowl. We open our view on slaves and slavery by seeing into the heart of the Father of these children. We find that the unsearchable riches of God’s love have found the hiding places of the darkest abysses of horror.

Paul gives lofty expression of that love. In the conclusion of Romans 8 he declares all the possible things can separate us from the love of God but don’t. In the list is one piece outside the experience of most: nakedness. Yet that for all who are in slavery, that is precisely the circumstance that holds hope. Whatever the abhorrent treatment of being naked or otherwise abused, that has not removed them from God’s love.

We recoil when we come close to the vivid details of OSEC (Online Sexual Exploitation of Children) or CSECM (Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children Material). Like touching a hot surface, we draw back, satisfied just to know it is hot. These images, these stories we just don’t want to hear or see. Besides, we know they will break our hearts. 

God does not recoil; he does not withdraw from them to a safe distance. Rather, he draws close to them. He stays close enough that he hears their muffled cries, he sees the beatings, he knows their despair. He stands beside them when they are working from 6 to 6 with little food, fear of beatings, and unremitting hard work. He feels their fear with darkness comes, the time when women are taken out to be raped. Nothing separates them from their heavenly father, and, yes, it breaks his heart.

With his broken heart he has outrage. For he sees the people who perpetrate these atrocities. He knows each by name and records what they have done to his children. No, he does not sit motionless in response. He will bring a day of justice. They have not seen it yet, but they will know how fearful it is to come before the living God.

The prophet Nahum opens with the co-mingling of God’s mercy and his vengeance. “The Lord is slow to anger, but he is a jealous and avenging God. He rages against his enemies and will by no means clear the guilty” (Nahum 1:1-3). After all, what kind of God and heavenly Father would he be if the plaintive cries of his children went unanswered. He has a day, and the words used for that day of judgment are: wrath, thunder, curse, fury, and anger. 

As there is a day of judgment for the evil, so he has a day of redemption for these children. 

Ezekiel gives us a picture of what their life will be. He fills the description with these images: living in the wild and sleeping in peace; showers not of rain but of blessings; fruit and vegetation that will feed without giving out; bars of previous yokes broken; a land with no fear, no insults, and no hunger. Ezekiel closes with these welcome words: “You are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, says the Lord God” (Ezek. 34:31).

Theirs is a special case, however, because of a missing piece of God’s ordinary plan.  Paul describes the way the Kingdom expands: “Everyone who calls in the name of the Lord shall be saved. But how can they believe in God unless someone has been sent to proclaim him?” 

Someone has come to us and told us of the Savior. But for these children, no one has been sent. With rare exceptions, none of these has been told of the hope of a Savior—none in the brothels, none in the mines or boats or factories, none where trafficked women are held captive. 

For them, the day of redemption will be the day of discovery. For the first time they will see the light of God’s love. The unknown love of a mother, the care of a father so barely known in their lives here—all that will be waiting in the embrace of their heavenly Father. He will be their Great Physician who will remove their scars and treat their wounds. He will heal their memories and remove their fear by his perfect love. And out of his broken heart will flow his tears of joy.

Luke tells us of the tears of a woman. She was “from the streets” and had quietly entered the place where a Pharisee had prepared a feast for Jesus Christ. She stood behind him and opened a jar of perfume. Then she bathed his feet and washed them with tears—her tears of joy for the one who loves her and all God’s children like her.