Daily Archive

Since learning about the vast impact of human trafficking–25 million people are estimated to be trafficked each year–I’ve made it one of my major social justice issues. I preached about it, of course; brought a guest to the pulpit to do the same; started an annual tradition of selling fair-trade (i.e., slavery-free) mini chocolate bars for church folks to distribute at Halloween, which was then picked up by volunteers and continues in a great format of connecting our folks directly to the increasing number of sources; helped give new life to a small group, UUs Ending Modern Slavery (UUEMS); with UUEMS, while its brief life flickered again, proposed human trafficking as a study/action issue to the General Assembly of the UUA (only one issue is chosen each year, and it lost); presented workshops and theater productions by survivors of trafficking. But as time went on, and for a variety of reasons–good ones, such as the importance of survivor leadership of anti-trafficking organizations–it became harder for me to find a place in the movement except by donating money. That’s one part of activism for those of us who have money to spare, but I thought there must be other parts also: actions I could take locally, because trafficking happens locally. But the short bursts of internet research I’d do to find one kept leading me down dead ends.

Once again, enter sabbatical. I decided that with that time, I’d persevere and find a way back into the movement to end human trafficking, i.e., slavery. And lo and behold, I found two under my nose. The Bay Area Anti-Trafficking Coalition, whose emails I always get and, um, usually read, was holding a day of education and action on the San Francisco Peninsula. I signed up, attended a few weeks ago, and it was just the kind of labor-intensive, grassroots activism that I had hoped for: helping to ensure that frontline workers in hotels and motels were getting trained to recognize signs of trafficking (as California law requires), and that they had large posters about trafficking prominently displayed where the public could see them (as California law also requires). Such a small moving of the needle, but that’s how things change.

I was also impressed and pleased by their presentation of the issue. While this action focused on disrupting sex trafficking, the presenter emphasized the fact that that is not the only kind of human trafficking. A frustration for me in this movement is that so much of it is focused on sex trafficking, sometimes to the exclusion of all else and sometimes (especially in faith-based initiatives) with an attitude that all sex work per se, all pornography no matter how it’s produced, and frankly, all sex is pretty unseemly. But trafficking happens in all kinds of labor–agriculture, manufacturing, domestic work–and I’m just as concerned about those. And while it’s true that there is a huge amount of trafficking in the sex trade, and that by some studies, the vast majority of people in that trade say they’d like to exit it altogether, I don’t think we treat sex workers with respect, or further our cause, if we act as if all sex work is slavery.

Anyway, a couple dozen of us got the training and went out in pairs–and one of the first people I saw there was a member of UUCPA, and of course we sat together and went out to do the hotel visits together. So much for sabbatical–it looked indistinguishable from a work day! But we kept our conversation on non-church matters like family, and it was great to see her and engage in this issue together.

The second opportunity followed from the first, as they often do. A few of the folks there were from a San Francisco organization (SF Collaborative Against Human Trafficking) that I haven’t gotten involved with before, again for legit reasons, but here I am spending all my time near my home in San Francisco for several months, so I connected with them and immediately learned of an upcoming conference that I hope will lead to ways to address trafficking right in SF. And I have time to go. So I’m going. Incidentally, in the course of following up with them, I learned that a friend of mine, the Hon. Susan Breall, is one of the co-chairs. I could see that as a *facepalm* or confirmation that I’m going in the right direction. I’ll go with the latter interpretation.

Speaking of friends, although UUs Ending Modern Slavery could not get established permanently, in the course of our efforts, I made a dear friend, Deborah Pembrook. We taught workshops together, strategized together, planned anti-trafficking events together, and really enjoyed each other’s company despite the somber reason we were meeting. Deborah died suddenly a year and a half ago, and stepping up my involvement in this issue feels like a memorial to her, and probably the kind she would have cherished the most. Deborah, there are 25 million reasons to bring about an end to human trafficking, and for me, you are one of the most vivid reasons of all.