Five Reasons We Should Fight for the Freedom of Enslaved Women
Guest Post By Kenny Jahng
By 1888, all countries had officially abolished
participation in the transatlantic slave trade.
But, slavery still exists.
In fact, there are 30,000,000 slaves worldwide.
80 percent of them are women.
That means there are 24,000,000 women and children that
have been forced into labor or indentured servitude; or that have been
trafficked and sold; or that have been forced into marriage as a child bride.
24,000,000 women like us are told their lives belong to
someone else.
24,000,000 women like us live without hope.
Many, many of those 24,000,000 women and children were
sold to another human for less than the cost of a new cell phone.
Imagine that for a second.
Imagine a price of less than $100 USD on your head.
It.
Just.
Doesn’t.
Compute.
Women were made
in the image of God. “God created mankind in His own image, male and female, He created them” (Genesis 1:27). We were created to be creative, purposeful, spiritual,
intelligent, relational, moral beings.
Women are the
hub of family and community. Whether women are
breadwinners, co-breadwinners or stay-at-home moms, their role in the family is
substantial. Mothers are the emotional backbones of the family. This is more
than just a nice thought. Study after study has shown that a woman has
tremendous impact on her family, affecting everything from the healthcare to academic performance of her children.
The enslavement
of women (and all humans) is against God’s plan. When Jesus died
for us, he gave us freedom from the slavery of sin. As freed slaves, it is our
job to “set at liberty those who are oppressed” (Luke 4:18).
Enslavement destroys the very humans created in God’s image.
Enslavement kills human potential.
Women should
not be sold. Human Trafficking is a
$32 billion dollar industry. To put that in perspective for us, that is 8x more
than the biggest company of the Inc. 5000
list in 2015.
Women are in
crisis globally. Imagine every woman in
America ages 18-24 was enslaved. Now add the entire population of New Zealand
to that number… and the entire population of Jamaica...and the entire
population of Fiji. That’s how many women
are enslaved worldwide. Does that
break your heart like it does mine?
We can do
something about this. We can tackle this
problem as a church. We can join movements like The Freedom
Challenge to raise funds and awareness.
We can free women together. We can provide restoration to women together. We
can challenge ourselves in the name of sisterhood and freedom.