The Opposite of Free Love

Trafficking in human beings for the sex trade is The Opposite of Free Love. The article’s been around for a while now but remains as true as ever it was.

Among the most common, and blatant, offenders are members of the U.S. military and international peacekeeping missions. For several years UN peacekeepers, including those on U.S. government contracts…trafficked women and children as young as twelve years old from other parts of Eastern Europe to Bosnia and Herzegovina…supervisors worked with Serbian organized crime rings to import girls for sexual servitude. Employees who raised questions were fired…“the sex slave trade in Bosnia largely exists because of the UN peacekeeping operation”...the sex trade in Bosnia received at least 30 percent of its revenue from UN and U.S. peacekeeping forces.

Trafficking in persons is not a women’s issue – it is a human issue. And it is not an issue that lends itself to a single “Christian response.” The truth is that there are many necessary Christian responses.

(_Thanks to Maggi for the tip_)

pax et bonum

Article posted at 11:40am on 26 July 2005
Category: Faith, Politics, Struggling

Classic. In the Congo UN peacekeepers are trading sex from young girls for food, but who is the only country mentioned here? The big bad US. Also, do a check on how many US troops are in Bosnia-Herzegovinia these days, compared to the rest of them.

If you had seen how the US handles their troops there (we keep them locked up in their bases) versus say, the Brits and the French (they run loose in town unarmed) you might realize how ridiculous it is to make the US appear like significant players in this tragedy.

The US has its share of problems it had been a force in making. This is not one of them.

Hammertime () (URL)
6:39pm on 26 July 2005

There are two important points here. First, the article does say “UN” as well as “US”, so it’s not being gratuitously biased. Also, the evidence that was quoted was directly by and about US citizens, so it is fair. I doubt that the US soldiers are especially more to blame than those of other nations, and the article never suggests that they are. (Indeed, much of the problem seems not to be the US soldiers but US government contractors involved in the situation.)

Second, as I said, the article is a couple of years old now, reporting on evidence that is obviously a little older still. So, the US were still in the Balkans in a major way back then. Besides, “solving” the problem simply because the individuals involved are now somewhere else (possibly doing the same thing all over again) isn’t any kind of solution.

No one is suggesting that the USA made this problem. The suggestion is that the USA is not doing all it can to stop it – just as most major governments (my own included) are failing. It’s intended as a wake-up call for us all, not an exercise in assigning blame.

pax et bonum

[John] () (URL)
7:14pm on 26 July 2005