On our very first family camping trip to Colorado, our
camp host told me she had been watching my husband and our children
together. She said she could tell he was a good father. And then she told
me a story that turns my blood cold to this day.
She said that some time earlier, a man arrived with
two children of a different ethnic background from his own. The man was
stern and the children neither played or smiled. They just sat still until
directed to do otherwise. While she felt uneasy about the situation, she
had no actual reason to call the authorities. But she noticed the group
departed in the direction of high mountain country, and she knew in her
heart she should have done something, anything, to make sure those children
were safe.
We will never know if that woman's intuition was
accurate or not. But she wouldn't have told me the story – and I wouldn't
have remembered it after all these years – if we both hadn't felt she should have investigated the situation.
What we do know is thousands of women and children are
bought and sold each year for sex and servitude.
The first step in controlling this problem is
information. Here are the links we've assembled to help you learn
more:
National Sex Offender Public Registry
articles
organizations
Settling down with a good book generally
means a juicy work of fiction will transport us to another
world. But occasionally, a work of non fiction is so
outstanding, you burrow into it and don't willingly come up for
air.
Bury the Chains,
by Adam Hochschild, is a very very good - and totally appalling
- history of the struggle to end slavery in the British Empire.
Of course,one meets exemplary human beings
like Thomas Clarkson, who spent his entire adult life organizing
the citizens of the British Isles to end slavery within the
empire. But it's the horrific deeds of the villains that
echo in your heart. So much so, it's easy to understand
why Jamaican national hero Sam Sharpe said before his execution,
"I would rather die upon yonder gallows than live in slavery."
It's not too hard to praise an enjoyable
book with phrases like "must read." I'm sure I've overdone
it myself on this website, since I only publish mini-reviews of books I like.
But Bury the Chains is so well-written and such an object
lesson for today's world of slavery and despair, I can't
recommend it highly enough. Nancy
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