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 is 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 opportunities 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 the 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?

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