Blogs from Dr. Bibiana MacLeod, International Trafficking Prevention Coordinator

August 2024

In September of 2023, MAI Missionary Zuzana Polackova and I embarked on a transformative journey across Central Europe to empower organizations in the fight against human trafficking. Invited to lead comprehensive training for CHE practitioners from diverse backgrounds, we gathered over 80 participants spanning 10 countries. Together, we delved into the intricacies of human trafficking, mapping its prevalence across our nations, and strategizing effective prevention measures.

Our training sessions went beyond knowledge transfer; they included crucial Trauma Healing sessions equipping attendees with practical skills to support survivors. As 2024 progresses, we are planning further sessions and continued engagement.

Parallel to these efforts, online initiatives expanded our reach globally. Through virtual Trauma Healing sessions, churches worldwide could now equip their members to provide compassionate care to trafficking survivors. A significant outcome of our collaborative efforts is the foundational module of the Anti-Human Trafficking manual, now translated into Spanish, marking the start of a multilingual initiative to broaden its accessibility and impact. Funding commitments ensure ongoing production of educational materials with translations tailored to diverse linguistic needs.

Our commitment to prevention also extends to children’s education. “Grandma Knows Best,” a series on sexual abuse prevention, translated into six languages including Ukrainian, Slovak, and Spanish, now reaches a broader audience, empowering children and caregivers alike.

Beyond trafficking prevention, Zuzana has pioneered Therapeutic Gardening lessons promoting mental health and well-being in communities across Canada and Latin America, covering everything from composting to nurturing pollinators.

Globally, our influence extends through co-founding the Latin Forum against Human Trafficking and joining the World Freedom Network of the World Evangelical Alliance. These roles underscore our efforts to mobilize the global Evangelical community in the fight for freedom.

As our initiatives gain momentum, Zuzana and I remain dedicated to innovating in the fight against human trafficking and fostering holistic community well-being.

November 2023

I was visiting a Ukrainian city, not far from the Slovak border, called Uzhorod. Medical Ambassadors International has contributed, through partnership with Cirkev Bratska in Slovakia, to the purchase of container homes for Internally Displaced People, (IDPs) in this place. The Baptist church in Uzhorod has various social projects, among them an orphanage. In our brief visit there, church leaders gave us a quick tour of the building during the morning hours. Most of the 27 children were in school, except four of them. Two were sick and two were newcomers from the day before. The orphanage director explained to us that the war is bringing a new challenge for vulnerable children. You can purchase a birth certificate from parents struggling with addictions, who would be willing to sell their children for some cash. The adoption of one more child can make a difference for men that are trying to escape the country and are only allowed to leave if they have three or more children. Then, proving parenthood to the government means exemption from recruitment. Foster homes are also involved in this business. As a result, abandoned children near the border are increasing in numbers. Another by-product of the war that not many people are aware of.

August 2023

Arrived in Santiago on Sunday, with the happiness of meeting again with Flor and Hiran de Leon, our family in Dominican Republic. The first shock was to feel the intense heat again, after few years away from Caribbean summers. My body took a few days to adapt, but I still need to cool off with a shower or the office AC while we prepare tonight’s speech on Human Trafficking for women from 5 nearby churches and the Regional Gathering for Medical Ambassadors partners at the end of the month. We are making copies of lessons, translating handouts into Spanish from English, into English from Spanish and in Haitian Creole to have everyone understand lessons that will be given during our time together, August 28th to September 1st. Tomorrow Wednesday, instead of going to Haiti as formerly planned, I will stay here to prepare few lessons for the gathering with birth attendants on Friday. The Haitian team is ready to pick me up at the border Thursday morning to go on back roads through the mountains to Bois de Laurence as our first stop. I am unsure of Internet capacity to keep you posted, but I will try.

PRAYER REQUESTS:

1. Easy border crossing, and timely pick up by my co-workers, that I will not have to be waiting in the open for their vehicle to show up, exposed to someone waiting for a chance to make money with a foreigner.

2. For physical health. It is common to get an intestinal bug, there is a Dengue outbreak and a Cholera outbreak in the country of Haiti. I take all the precautions, but sometimes it is difficult to stay safe. The heat is also extreme and I need to remind myself of drinking all the time to replenish what is lost in these high temperatures.

3. For safety all along, for the whole group travelling through difficult areas in rural Haiti.

4. For refreshing time for trainers, birth attendants and community members. I am thankful for Vogue Optical manager, Mr. Andrews, who gave me a full bag of prescription glasses to be distributed among birth attendants that have requested them. Please, pray that I will find easy lessons to teach during these encounters, that will be appropriate for their needs.

5. I AM THANKFUL FOR YOU. I know I am not alone. You are a blessing to me.

March 2023

How can the Church help stop Human Trafficking?

Maybe that is the wrong question. Perhaps even inappropriate. Perhaps the first question to ask should be “How does Missio Dei, the mission of God, relate to the dreadful reality of human trafficking?”

We must define, again and again, what a church on mission looks like, sounds like, and smells like when the context cries out for divine intervention in such a complex problem. It seems to me that this task of definition is an ongoing job of the church. Times throw new challenges at us, with emerging issues that we did not deal with in the past—like human trafficking. Maybe we were unaware because we had other priorities, or the world in which we lived before did not pay attention to these terrible crimes. But now we are aware. So, let us enter together into the presence of the Lord, asking Him first to reveal to us the way in which His beloved bride should get involved, being His response to the challenge of stopping human trafficking.

PRAYER: Heavenly Father of the vulnerable, of the voiceless: We ask that you give us the tools, the courage, the theological understanding, and the drive to respond to injustice in the power of the Spirit and not our own. Let us respond on your behalf and in response to the great love with which you have loved us—we who are also unfaithful, blind, slaves and prisoners, but freed by your grace. Amen.

In Luke 10 we read the parable of the good Samaritan, who “was moved with compassion” for an injured man he found on the road, says verse 31. The word used in the Greek, splagchnizomai, describes an emotional state, which in other passages refers to Jesus having grief for a mother that had lost her only son, or His concern for a hungry community. It is also used in the story of the father who received his lost son, welcoming him with love and compassion. In this case, the Samaritan, unlike the ecclesiastical leaders of the moment, was moved. Literally, “his intestines writhed” because he saw someone in great need. (The gut was seen as the center of emotions for Jesus’ culture.) He felt an urge coming from within. The wounded man was no longer “the other,” the person who was not like him, but was one like him, who was in trouble.

God willing, we can change enough to see that human trafficking is not a problem out there that needs to be solved. It is our problem, of our culture, of our children and grandchildren, of the society in which we have been established. There is no “other,” only “us,” those of us who are going to fight so that this does not happen again to any of ours. If the local congregation finds itself limited in some of the tasks below, its leaders can search for others who have the resources and can become part of a larger initiative. This is the time for us as Christians to identify the need to work with others, to find ourselves as ministry partners with like-minded people (the “us” who are at hand).

WE PRAY regularly, being informed, collecting stories, looking for people to help us understand the situation, and making our faith family aware of the problem, so that prayer is specific and directed at defined goals and topic.

WE ARE PART OF THE PREVENTION SYSTEM.

Since 97% of sex slaves were sexually abused in childhood, we are going to prepare our whole congregations to protect our children, creating guidelines for our parents and teachers and plans of action to protect classrooms and church spaces, communicating them to the whole church, and implementing every step so that abuse does not occur in our midst.
We work in all age groups of our church to prevent trafficking IN ALL ITS FORMS: through special education for children. We instruct youth about self esteem and grooming, about the dangers of cyber-crimes, pornography, and oppressive masculinity and we give them lessons about the meaning of being created male and female in the image of God. We teach adults, through special classes for each group, how to prevent the capture of people to be exploited. We speak openly about sources of vulnerability that allow trafficking: the dangers caused by lack of resources, the desire for economic well-being, and by dreams of professional progress. Vulnerability is greatly increased by a lack of information and lack of wisdom to discern between reliable job offers and those that deceive people.
The church is not only concerned with primary prevention (preventing abuse and exploitation from happening), but also with secondary prevention (preventing it from happening again if someone has already been a victim). With diligence, the church examines what purchases could perpetuate labor trafficking and refuses to be part of the oppressive chain of demand for goods that are produced by slaves. Through simple tools, detected cases are immediately protected and monitored WITHOUT INTERFERING WITH THE STATE LEGAL PROCEDURE that may be taking place in parallel. The church knows where to go or how to accompany the family for appropriate professional help; it does not overburden counselors by referring cases that are beyond their talents and abilities. Instead, the church has a ministerial area that knows how to delegate, ask for help, and at the same time equip its members for the tasks of walking alongside that can alleviate the pain of those who have been victims of trafficking.

WE ANSWER AND ACT

The church does not tolerate any form of abuse, labour, or sex exploitation, inside or outside its membership, intervening in cases, exhorting, and teaching the concepts of justice that the Bible contains.
The church knows the response mechanisms once a case of trafficking is detected, informs the relevant state offices, identifies with those who suffer, and contributes financially directly through one of its members or indirectly to specialized ministries in the area so that they can perform their tasks with excellence.
Non-professionals in the local church are trained in what we know as informed trauma care with tools that contribute to the healing process. The church supports transit and shelter houses that focus on receiving victims of trafficking. Members can volunteer, give financial support, make real estate available, provide food and prepared meals, or offer temporary lodging in specific cases of rescue. They receive training in specific areas and are inclusive, without judging or labeling. The church embraces, receives with love, is patient and learns to suffer with those who suffer, not expecting to change people or force them to accept the gospel in exchange for shelter. Many churches are open to integrating people in rehabilitation into their regular services, giving some “normalcy” and a sense of belonging to people who have long lost those feelings.
The church even loves despite sacrifice and pain, recognizing there will be relapses, people returning to their previous state of slavery. Sometimes even other believers will judge them for their involvement with “such people.” Nevertheless, the church does not lower its arms: it identifies with those who have prostituted themselves, because it knows that it is fundamentally guilty of similar sins and has been forgiven. Therefore, it is resilient and accepts the challenge, insisting on loving unconditionally.
The church meets regularly with other Christians and non-Christians who are working together to fight trafficking, promote justice, strengthen themselves, and strengthen everyone else, because it recognizes that this is not a task for isolated individuals. God is evidenced in unity of purpose, so the world will believe. Networking is essential to advance and grow. The connections make us see more clearly than when we trust our own perception of things.
Finally, not because it occurs at the end of this process, but to emphasize the extreme importance of this action: the church heals from its own wounds and in this process is capable of facilitating the healing of others. We receive and give tools so that the Spirit is free to act in the long-term healing process.

In summary, the bride of Christ sees herself as a victim and survivor of this crime, and in turn embraces those who are visibly suffering, because Jesus whom we love is present and has made them “me and us” and not “those others.” (Matthew 25:31-46)

January 2023

Cyber Security

Our Latin American team of co-workers discussed the documentary The Social Dilemma, that we watched as part of discussions on cyber security. I will not spoil it by telling you the story line, but it helps people understand artificial intelligence and how algorithms help marketers make a profile of users to their advantage on social platforms and other digital spaces. Just as I was sharing in a previous blog about pedophiles and groomers, here we are, innocent victims of a much larger issue and de-criminalized behavior: we are the product.

We are used to the profit of larger companies that will make money as we visualize the feeds in our social networks. We continue to ignore terms like malware, (referring to malicious software with the purpose of obtaining personal data or destroy computers and computer systems), phishing, (by email), smishing, (by texts), or vishing (by phone, to obtain credit card and banking information).

It occurs to me that our role as citizens of the Kingdom is to create awareness and spread it through our circles of influence. We have an obligation to our families and friends, to be the voice and the action against unsafe online behaviors. Aggression to our sexual integrity is just one of the many aspects of unsafe online practices. Putting those that we care most under the radar of predators can be avoided. During our class for community and team members on cyber security, we worked to create a list of recommendations that participants can easily identify with and adopt. Here are some of them:

When you see a link inside one of your apps, STOP and THINK. Clicking it will launch the algorithms that create your online behavioural profile.
Consider other search engines that are not selling your data, like Qwant.
Do not trust unknown numbers for conversations, nor friendship requests of Friends that were already in your contacts list, (they could have been hacked).
Turn off notifications, erase personal information from your online profiles in multiple applications.
Be an example to your children by controlling the time you spend on your phone interacting with social media and leaving your phone out of reach for those moments when you are spending quality time with your family.

This battle is going to be long and require the church to be part of the solution. You and I are as responsible as the rest of digital users. Would you do your part?

Isaiah 61:8 For I, the LORD, love justice; I hate robbery and wrongdoing. In my faithfulness I will reward my people and make an everlasting covenant with them.

December 2022

Catching up with Groomers (Part 3)

Sometimes we feel that this race against Grooming in the digital world we are miles behind the perpetrators. While we are going on the slow line, they are going at high speed on the fast one. One of the biggest advantages we can have is to join others and create networks that will interact, exchange information, and propose legislation that is the same across borders. I truly believe this is the time for little kingdoms to disappear and for the only King to lead us through.

We need to study our populations and understand how victims become so vulnerable. In Latin America victims that are the most vulnerable are between 9 and 14 years old. Games like Roblox, Clash Royale and Mindcraft are played by children as young as 7 years old. In some instances where multiple players from around the world are involved, they can provide limited contact information that could include a phone number and they are added to social networks like a Whatsapp group. Whastapp is a popular communication app in many countries around the world. There are stories of children being added to Whastapp groups where there are pedophiles that befriend them and initiate contact this way.

One more thing to consider is the stereotype we may have of a pedophile, because it makes people lower their guard. Not only old men are offenders, but there are also young, good looking men and women that could be groomers. They are allowed in our homes, in our children devices and we no longer can distinguish between outside and inside.

It is parents and educators´ role to build up a safe space of sincere conversations and confidence where children can learn to shield themselves from predators. Sex education must include digital literacy. The recommended age of initiation in social media is 13 -16 years old. We are confronting sleepy societies and a cultural battle. Will we all do our part to join the groups already invested in this fight? Would you help us protect those most vulnerable around the world? You can fight this war on your knees, praying for every book, every lesson we prepare and teach, for parents to grow in awareness and police force to be effective, for legislators to create laws that will bring offenders to justice. Join the race, because there is a prize at the finish line for all of us!

Amos 5:15 Hate evil and love what is good;
turn your courts into true halls of justice.
Perhaps even yet the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies
will have mercy on the remnant of his people (NLT)

October 2022

Catching up with Groomers (Part 2)

Grooming is a form of child sexual abuse that does not even need to be in the same room with the child to be performed. We can lock our house and the predator enters in the intimacy of our child’s room. Damage is done in the spirit, mind, and sexuality of the child, even if the groomer is located miles away from him or her.

Grooming is a process that takes 4 phases over a period of hours or months. Although some groomers may skip some stages, they are often carefully crafting their crime as they gain confidence.

The first stage is called Targeting. The offender will be finding information about vulnerable victims, creates a false profile, obtains information that has been shared in social media, which will be used to pretend they know the child, or they are close to his/her circle of acquaintances.

The second stage is Gaining Access and Trust, also called the Bond. Conversation with the child is geared toward building a relationship, making a connection between his/her tastes, needs or interests and the pretended needs, interests, and taste of the predator. Confidence is built.

The third stage, the process of Seduction, where the requests start, is based in a common question: “Can you keep a secret?” As the child is told “a secret”, he/she is invited to share a secret too, creating the conditions for coercion and threat. The child is now trapped to perform as told. It could be removing clothing, performing sexual acts with younger kids that will be videoed or sending compromising pictures.

Fourth, the abuse becomes regular, maintaining Control and Manipulation. The child feels guilty and does not see a way out of the situation.

By teaching children from an early age, we do what is called primary prevention. But in some cases, young participants will approach the facilitator to reveal an already existing relationship that is in one of the phases described. We can still do secondary prevention, collect digital evidence, and call for help. We are committed to inform, protect, educate parents and caregivers in general, to facilitate dialogue and help them take wise decisions.

John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

September 2022

Trafficking in Persons and the Role of the Church

A blog in response to the commemoration of September 23, International Day of Trafficking and Trafficking in Persons.

Did you know that in South America there are aboriginal groups that consider it normal to sell their teenage daughters to survive poverty? I have witnessed the challenge pastors of a local church face as they grapple with such ingrained cultural principles. In another country in the region, after talking about the reality of child sexual abuse among our ranks in faith communities, people (mostly women) have approached us on different occasions with heartbreaking stories of years or months of suffering. The stories multiply, and the vulnerability increases for these people to be trafficked in the future. More recently, as members of a Christian anti-trafficking network, we have heard from abused, exploited, and deprived of liberty migrants in several Latin American countries. It seems like a virus, that the pandemic, armed conflicts, and climate change have allowed it to spread without any opposition to limit and control it. The words of the prophet Isaiah resound, “Is it not the fast that I have chosen rather to break the chains of injustice and loosen the straps of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every bond?”

For more than 30 years I have served in communities in the Caribbean and South America promoting Integral Development instead of assistance that generates dependency. However, more recently, I have been exposed to other realities where community work does not seem to positively affect the dire results of collective sin. When we talk about social justice, about extreme poverty, about international crimes, one wonders, how can the local church get involved in the fight against power structures that are so organized, massively financed and weakly defined in national laws, (if any), to end them?

In a report recently published by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the International Organization for Migration (OIM), an increase in modern slaves is calculated, now numbering between 50 million people. Despite the volume of slaves, so much greater than that which caused the abolition of slavery in past centuries, we ask ourselves: Will we Christians continue resigned to pick up the fallen and minister from the comfort of our pews, to those who appear at the doors of our buildings? Is it enough simply to be field hospitals in the middle of this war, or could we be part of a prevention system, and immediate action when we consider the factors that predispose to the commission of the crime of trafficking?

First of all, let us define the concepts as the signatory countries of the Palermo protocol do: Trafficking in persons, (in Spanish, TRATA DE PERSONAS), means the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or reception of persons, by means of threat , use of force or other forms of coercion, kidnapping , fraud, deception, abuse of power or a position of vulnerability or giving or receiving payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person who has control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery, or practices similar to slavery, servitude, or the removal of human organs. Smuggling of people (In Spanish it is confusing because this Term is TRAFICO, which in English means smuggling, not trafficking) , on the other hand, is defined as the illegal transport and entry to another country, in exchange for money, where the relationship with the trafficker can end after fulfilling the objective, although both crimes can often be combined.

Our churches can be part of the prevention and detection, the culture of denunciation and the reception of those men and women, boys and girls, hurt by the effects of those who have abused their vulnerabilities in one way or another. Our mission extends the arms of God to be salt and light, as Jesus teaches us in Matthew 5:13-16. Being on the ledge to give light to all who are in the house can mean the following:

Understand the mechanisms of recruitment, teach children to protect themselves and act against any attempt to abuse them. There are numerous good materials, adapted culturally and by age, that are being used around the world to prevent and educate our children, adolescents and young people.
Educate parents, teachers and leaders in practical ways of prevention, digital literacy, appropriate use of social networks, and how to respond in cases of sexual abuse within their area of influence. Thank the Lord for those committed brothers and sisters willing to teach us in the Latin American region!
Equip the membership for active listening, helping them to confront their emotional wounds, reaching for the healing power that comes when we go to the cross, not only to forgive sins but to bring our pain to him. (Isaiah 53: 4 and 6 says that He bore our diseases… thanks to his wounds we are healed), serve the broken hearted in an informed, humble manner and subject to the biblical principles of the Misio Dei.
Being part of local, regional and international ministerial networks, where you can fight together, synergistically, learning from others and being a resource and reference in organized platforms, care of specific cases, and interaction with specialized groups that inform, educate and investigate procedures, new cases , trends and solutions in other countries that tell us how to continue in ours.
Take part in Universal Periodic Reviews that United Nations put together on a regular basis in each country, where they collect information gathered by civil society to assess the situation of human rights and human trafficking from the church’s perspective. We are invited to be the voice of those that have none.

The evidence is right under our noses. There are brothers already involved in the fight. God’s command is forceful. The decision to join is our choice. But as the abolitionist Wilberforce said in the 19th century, “You may look the other way, but you can never say again that you didn’t know.”

Notes:

https://www.unodc.org/documents/e4j/tip-som/Module_6_-_E4J_TIP_ES_FINAL.pdf

Groups like Protect, Placeresperfectos.org , children’s books like Cuentos que no son Cuentos, BRAVE BEAR TRUST, a story of love and freedom, and the Priceless Cube are just examples of many materials available in different languages to support this ministry.
Topics to be discussed in youth groups such as Online Grooming, healthy use of social networks, Sexting, Sextortion and the danger of pornography should be part of our educational program in youth groups.
The American and Canadian Bible Society´s program, Healing the Wounds of Trauma, is being implemented in many countries and has been well received and adapted in many local contexts.
Since August 2020, the Latino Forum Against Trafficking, sponsored by the World Evangelical Alliance, has brought together more than 25 non-profit organizations, denominations and local churches in Latin America to spread this proposal. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=Foro%20Latino%20contra%20la%20Trata Quarterly zoom meetings allow them to get to know each other and discuss pertinent topics that facilitate them to continue learning and working together.

August 2022

Catching up with Groomers

I recently participated in a workshop on grooming in Latin America. The speaker was leading an Argentine organization focused on grooming prevention, unique in its field, due to the very specific emphasis on this crime. For grooming to be considered a crime it must be defined in a penal code, and regretfully, not many countries in the region have included it in their laws. Colombia and Argentina have done it, but definition and penalties are different in each country. Penalty for grooming in Argentina is the same as signing a bad check, (6 months), and it is described as using digital means to communicate with the child. Colombia raises the bar, considering other ways of communication with the child, (any way of communication to be specific) and penalty of up to 14 years of jail.

If you look for a definition of grooming in the context of Human Trafficking and Sexual Abuse, you will find the following: the action by a pedophile of preparing a child for a meeting, especially via an internet chat room, with the intention of committing a sexual offense. The challenge is the way the law defines it. The trend today is not the meeting in person, but provoking a child to produce graphic material that will be used in porn sites, under threats or coercion. I learned that most of the groomers are overseas, and this makes digital evidence essential to process the groomer. However, children usually feel shame and want to keep the secret, erasing chats, pictures, and videos from their devices.

How can we stop it?

I will be sharing few more details in further blogs, but the key action is to educate parents and children in the proper use of games and social media. Removing the phone from a child may give a false sense of security, but it is not going to stop it. We need to create an environment of informed users. We realize that our children are exposed too early to situations that they may be unable to manage, or at least not ready.

In surveys done in Argentina, the average age of acquisition of digital identity is 9 years old. This means that my little grandson would have a profile out there in at least one social network, or a game like Minecraft, exposing himself to this crime. Is he ready? Does he have the capacity to identify a predator? Even if the child has not created a profile, parents are eager to share pictures of their children with signs and evidence of the school they attend, the sports team they belong to, the places they go, even key information like address or town where they live. There is a term for it: “sharenting”. Inadvertently, caregivers share their parenting with the world, unaware of those looking for information to choose their next victim.

Are Latin-American children more vulnerable because of weak laws and lack of education? What should we do about it?

More to come soon!

April 2022

Refugees and Human Trafficking

We all have been watching the news about the war in Ukraine. But, maybe we have not been tuning in to find out about the parallel war that is being fought at the borders, against the recruiting of refugees by Human Trafficking cartels. This is organized crime at its best, it grows, it is attentive, and it morphs into new adaptative strategies as they find any sign of resistance or response from local authorities or organizations involved in the fight against this crime. The reality is that war survivors are not out of danger once they cross a border. All the opposite, they are highly vulnerable, and we must extend our humanitarian response to prevention, detection, and protection against those waiting for them with false promises on the “apparently right” side of safety.

European Freedom Network has published tips to encourage fleeing Ukrainians and humanitarian respondents to be smart in the way they interact, and protective of women and children. We take the liberty to share some of their suggestions:

Tips for refugees: when someone offers you a drive or hosting your family, ask to take a picture of their identification, their vehicle plate, and send it to a trusted friend. If they refuse, do not accept the help. Anyone willing to help honestly would agree to be identified. Never give your passport or ID for someone else to hold, never give away your phone device.
Tips for drivers and hosting families: identify yourself, provide clear information of what kind of service you will be providing, a map of your neighbourhood and rules of the house, what areas they will be able to access in the house and if they can cook their own meals or not. Tell them the route you will follow and do not take detours or make announced stops. Allow them to take a picture of you, your ID and your plates. This gives them peace of mind that you are not hiding anything.
Tips for those coordinating drives and help: ask drivers to provide ID and picture of their plates, picture of people being picked up and address where they were driven to. Make sure people are safely taken to where they were asking to go or assigned to go.

Churches are key implementers of humanitarian response. Are they ready? Have they been trained? At Medical Ambassadors International we have been preparing Slovak translations of Healing the wounds of trauma and Psychological First Aid to help partners serving at the borders with Ukraine. Zuzana, Slovak missionary with MAI continues to serve in her home country during the month of May to leave trained church leaders in charge of multiplying the teachings.

Pray for this second war, not in the front lines of Ukrainian soil, but in the various countries where refugees are arriving, hoping for a friendly smile, a home, a new future. Instead, they fall in traps nobody has helped them understand, identify and ran from. Help us prevent this crime!

March 2022

Not Always Assertive

A few days ago, a native lady called a friend asking for help. She requested aid to return home after being taken to another country by her cousin, apparently, with lies about a promising job.

That friend, who received the desperate call, happened to be a missionary I work with. We were together at the kitchen table when the message came through. My “anti-human trafficking” buttons were put into motion, processing my contacts from the Latin network I am a member of. In a few minutes we had already found a way to help this lady. We connected with an organization who contacted local authorities to help her and another family of natives that, according to her story, were also in trouble and in need of rescue.

However, when we asked for precise information, including location and other data, there was silence. Why?

We kept receiving messages, but no clear data to help authorities locate them. My missionary friend decided to contact the lady’s family this side of the border. We discovered she had left home against the will of her dad. More information revealed that the situation was not clear or made much sense.

As it happens often, stories are more complicated and less romantic than we would like them to be. Victims of human trafficking are often vulnerable at several fronts, and their stories of decision making do not follow the storyline of a novel. Rather, we see brokenness, anger, lack of trust, and lies all over the conversation. What do you do? It would be easy to dismiss the phone call, and assume she just wanted money from my friend. But she is at high risk where she is and needs help to get out of there.

How do you help wisely? How do you protect yourself from people to take advantage of your compassion and drive to assist?

You pray for discernment and keep responding, just like God does with us, because of His immense love for us. Do we love others this much?

February 2022

Trauma Healing

Zuzana Polackova and I have started a journey into the path of Trauma healing, as part of our ongoing learning experience. We joined a Trauma healing group almost a year ago. We were exposed to our own ghosts and found ourselves going to the cross to be healed. Isaiah 53:5 “and his wounds we are healed” took a new meaning to us.

Eight months later and several equipping sessions later found us leading a healing group with participants from different countries. We do this not because of our accomplishments in the field, but as fellow sojourners. One of the six sessions deals with our emotional wounds and how the concepts we learned about our earthly parents may affect the way we relate to God.

As we were looking at passages in the Bible, one attendee said, “I just realized how Jesus had a clear image of God as his Father, a healthy one, not attached to poor human role models, but to the reality that the Word of God wants us to assimilate and live by.” It was her “AHA” moment. This is a woman who has been working in Anti-human trafficking for decades and is being equipped with new tools to serve survivors and those suffering the pain of loss and hurting around us. But God ministered to her that day.

This is just a glimpse of how we are all part of a process, how we are being transformed while others join in, and become agents of transformation too. It is not a one-way street. We approach our work as fellow pilgrims, broken, and in need of grace, learning from each other, being put back together by our maker, our heavenly Father, that may not have many things in common with the image of fatherhood some of us may have learned in the past. For some people, the idea of having a Father in God brings mix feelings, because of their sad history with their biological or adoptive father. For others, a good role model facilitates that relationship with God. Either way, God is a Father that expresses his love for us beyond our wildest imagination. He wants to recreate the right idea of who He is to us, and Jesus showed us how.

February 2022

The Continuum on Intervention

Would praying for your child and bonding prevent trauma from Sexual Abuse? Of course not! However, healthy relationships are a key element for healing. It is a great start.

Our work with parents moves on, after talking about bonding and praying, while they continue to practice those skills. Some cultures are excellent at encouraging moms to spend time with their newborn, keeping toddlers close to them and watching their every movement. Some communities, due to displacement, forced labour of primary caregiver, or traumatic experiences like a disaster, are left with less resources, or they may need to extend responsibilities to older siblings, neighbors, and other family members, like grandparents. In modern society, child-care has provided paid substitutes for that particular role that is so meaningful for brain growth.

I remember while practicing medicine in Haiti that children with the most severe form of malnutrition called Kwashiorkor tended to have a common story: Mom or dad had left them under the care of a relative, (more often it was the mom who had left), mainly the grandmother or auntie. How do we explain the sadness in the child´s face? Was it due to malnutrition or was it the sense of being forsaken? Usually, the child loses interest in playing with others, along with the lack of appetite and overall symptoms of depression. I do not recall ever seeing a happy child with Kwashiorkor. The worse part of these stories is that the brain damage provoked by sustained malnutrition is irreversible. Or is there more than lack of nutrients that makes the brain lose the ability to learn? Truth is, if we want to prevent Human Trafficking in the communities we serve, we cannot isolate the problem from the complexity of other issues prevalent in the same context.

Trauma or neglect provoke changes in the brain and its connections to the rest of the body, along with the emotions they cause. They affect the way the child constructs a worldview, based on those experiences. The child learns in these early years that the world is not safe. We ask in our meetings with community members: Who is responsible for the wellbeing and protection of children? What if their caregiver is not there?

From the time when we dealt with the HIV pandemic in the ´90s, we worked to provoke a community response to the most vulnerable children, family members of terminal patients, some of them even caring for their parents. We learned back then that communities were able and willing to care for their own, and we provided tools back then. Now, we revisit the issue: community members can protect the most vulnerable children, monitoring growth, identifying concerning behaviors, helping each other to define what is healthy growth and how to facilitate children´s safety in homes, schools, churches and public places. We cannot argue that these children are somebody else´s and they are not our problem. We are all responsible. Our children belong to all of us, and they are the future of our villages and neighborhoods. We will care for them now, and they can trust us. We will help families bring them up in healthy environments.

This is why I believe the Community Health Evangelism framework provides a unique perspective to prevention of Human Trafficking. Through years of participatory dialogue, local trainers have people´s trust and we have been allowed into their conversations, into their homes, into their families. May we be part of newly committed neighborhoods, to see children flourish. May we learn to use the right tools to face adversity holding the hands of loving caregivers!

January 2022

Intervention

Somewhere in a rural area of Latin America lays a 7 year old native girl, trying to hide from a relative that regularly visits her bed when nobody is looking. He has been doing this for months, entering the room, taking her clothes off, and slowly annihilating the possibility for her to have a healthy idea of what her sexuality is all about. Instead, fear, headaches, wounds, and threats sensitize her to understand the world she is in as an unsafe, unpredictable place. While she should be protected and cared for, the opposite is happening. She feels alone and disempowered. She could be one of those million girls that later in life will be tricked into getting a new job, that ends up being a form of exploitation, being moved from place to place, offering her body as merchandise. Child Sexual Abuse is a strong predictor of Human Trafficking, according to several studies[1].

Our hearts ache thinking of paralyzed family members, that have not taken action in order to protect the false equilibrium of relationships within their small network. How would you go about it if you were the pastor of a small congregation and heard this horrible story from the lips of a teenager, also a relative, that is not finding support from her older sister or her dad, to stop the abuser by reporting him to the police and removing him from the community? What are the challenges of such intervention? How can culture compete with God’s moral laws and win? We are working together for possible solutions to this case. However, this is an expression of a much deeper problem we need to address. I have recently been reading about developmental trauma, and its consequences on the brain and a child’s worldview.

Dr. Bruce Perry[2] and other neuroscientists have written enough material for us to realize the structural damage that is being made when a child suffers severe trauma early in life. Brain connections, associations and behavior are explained by what has happened in those first years of life. We go into communities and equip parents to provide the best possible integral care the first 1000 days of life, because we can stop Human Trafficking from this end too. Explaining and practicing the benefits of bonding, soft answers, response to essential needs of the baby, singing, rocking, cuddling, touching, eye contact and overall non-violence and active presence, attention, connection, will bring the sense of safety and predictability that an infant needs to respond to stress in appropriate ways in the future. Prayer for our children from the moment they are conceived continues to be foundational to their development too.

[1] https://lnkd.in/dz7CbNtt Human Trafficking of minors and childhood adversity in Florida,
[2] What Happened to you? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and healing. Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey, 2021, Harpo, Inc.

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