South African Sex Show Meets The Salvation Army

An unlikely attender at the South African Sex Show was The Salvation Army. Amongst the toys and dancers and all of that, there was The Salvation Army; in amongst the people, aiming to make a difference.

Should we be there? Of course. That's what The Salvation Army have historically done well. We go to the places people least expect and offer hope in Jesus Christ. At the sexpo Salvationists are helping people be aware of the dangers of sex trafficking. It's a modern day epidemic and we must fight against it.

The Australian Federal Police say, "Human trafficking, slavery and slavery-like practices such as servitude, forced labour and forced marriage are complex crimes and a major violation of human rights.  Around the world men, women and children are trafficked for a wide range of exploitative purposes, such as:

• Servitude
• Slavery
• Forced labour
• Debt Bondage
• Forced marriage; or
• Organ harvesting"

The Salvation Army are at the South African Sexpo to raise awareness of such issues.

People become sex trafficked or rather the victims of sex trafficking in the follow ways (adapted from www.thefreedomproject.org):

1. Women and children are kidnapped into slavery.
2. Some children are sold to traders by their parents (primarily because of poverty).
3. Some children are willingly sent with a trader by their parents, who have been promised that their children will receive a good education, an apprenticeship or a good job and good prospects or even just adequate food. Traders can often be well known locals or relatives, so the parents trust them.
4. Some women are married-off, to new husbands that sell them off into the sex industry.
5. Others respond to job advertisements offering good pay for manual labour, only to find that they are imprisoned on arrival, subjected to vastly different employment contracts to what they had been led to believe, with no escape, and may be made to work for many years labouring for no pay at all.
6. Many women apply to sham foreign job agencies or to study overseas, and go abroad thinking they will receive education or have employment as a waitress or a nanny etc, only to find when they reach their destination that the reality is very different, and that they are imprisoned, raped and forced into the prostitution industry.

The Salvation Army will continue to raise awareness of sex trafficking. Not only will we build awareness, but in conjunction with other agenices and organisations, we will seek to make a difference in the sex-trade industry.

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