Slavery Still Exists, an ASUO student group, kicked off its human trafficking and advocacy awareness campaign with a rally Friday.
Kristin Rudolph, co-president of the club, said the rally’s purpose was to make students aware of a growing, worldwide injustice.
Community members gathered in the EMU amphitheater at noon to listen to the featured speaker, Christine MacMillan, talk about her personal experiences with human trafficking as the director of the Salvation Army’s International Social Justice Commission. The International Social Justice Commission has worked to fight global human rights violations, such as human trafficking, since its inception in 2007.
MacMillan said there are more than 27 million human slaves in the world and every two minutes, another human is being trafficked. The problem of human trafficking is quickly rising throughout the world and becoming one of the most profitable global industries. People all over the world are being trafficked as early as age 2 and being forced into hard labor, manipulation, abuse and sexual exploitation.
Rally attendees expressed surprise at learning the prevalence and proximity of human trafficking locally.
“I really didn’t know that this was such a big issue where I live,” University sophomore Apolinar Montero-Sanchez said. “I’m glad that people are getting aware of this stuff, because it’s a big problem.”
MacMillan shared several stories of human trafficking during the rally. For example, she explained that while sex trafficking is well-known, there are other forms of human trafficking, such as trafficking human organs. While visiting Mexico City, MacMillan discovered how unmarked ambulances pick up homeless children, strap the children onto gurneys, bring them to the hospital and drug them with anesthetics in order to traffic their organs. After removing organs, such as kidneys, the traffickers leave most of the children for dead.
Because the majority of the world is not informed about the topic, it continues to go on unbeknownst to many, according to MacMillan. She described human trafficking as “a very hidden problem in our world.”
She urged rally attendees to gain more knowledge about human trafficking and join the fight to end this problem.
“Keep aware that (human trafficking) is an issue in neighborhoods where you least expect it; it can even happen on university campuses,” MacMillan said. “I have heard of high school students who traffic their peers in the basements of their homes. It’s the kind of power base that makes people almost helpless in response, so look at power bases in your life and ask yourself where you want to make a difference.”
At the end of the rally, blue ribbons were passed around to honor the victims whose lives have been lost to human trafficking. University freshman Tori Hamachek said she learned a lot from the rally.
“The human trafficking problem is a really big issue,” she said. “It could be anyone of us, and we all are human so we all deserve to have a right to life and happiness.”
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