Today’s entry in my church’s prayer diary was an unexpected one, which is not a sentence I get to say often. Yesterday’s entry was the usual: all about praying for guidance for the new after school club for the kids, where the day before that was for praying for the minister as he delivered the sermon – the usual things you’d find in a church prayer diary. But today’s one was more than unusual, it was a challenge: the red light prayer.
My route to work has a lot of traffic lights, so I immediately thought of being stuck at one or several of those. It turns out, this was part of the prayer, but the red light they were also referring to was the seedy, dodgy part of town, the red light district. The place where there are sex workers, and probably drugs, disease and crime. Probably – definitely! I don’t know where ours is – there must be one; it’s a major city, after all. I never think of these things, but the prayer diary outline some alarming statistics.
600,000 – 800,000 people are bought and sold across international borders each year; 50% are children, most are female.
The average age of entry for children victimized by the sex trade industry is 12 years.
The global market of people trafficking is over $37 billion a year.
If you look at the numbers alone, it brings it to your doorstep. I f so many people are being forced into the sex trade, it must be happening near you. It’s happening around you, so what can you do to fight it? The red light challenge wants you to take the time you’re spending stopped at a traffic light to pray about sex trafficking. Use a traffic light to stop trafficking – by prayer?
As a Christian, I believe in the power of prayer, but it seems a little like “good intentions”, of hoping to overcome an appalling crime by doing something so passive, like praying. The prayer diary has an answer for that – noted abolitionists considered prayer their number one weapon in the fight to end slavery. They didn’t think prayer was a passive thing! Yes, these people did other things, real things to stop slavery, but they relied on prayer.
Stopped at a traffic light, I thought about it. All those people in the sex trade…how much degradation and humiliation did they have to go through every day? I clenched my jaw, thinking about it – something my dentist has warned me not to do. I need to relax my jaw, keep my teeth apart and rest my mandibular joint. I’ve had problems with my jaw, and made me feel in danger of developing TMJ, which is like the arthritis of the mandible. I’ve been asking people to pray with me about that, keep me from clenching my jaw or grinding my teeth. But pain in my jaw seems so insignificant when compared to people being smuggled into countries and forced into prostitution. People? Children…ow. I opened my mouth slowly as the light turned green and I could drive off.
I have to stop clenching my teeth. I wasn’t aware I did it until my jaw started hurting. It doesn’t even hurt that much, just a sharp spasm every now and again, but my dentist says it could get worse. It’s a self-inflicted problem, not like being kidnapped, deceived, imprisoned, raped…those poor people! Lord, help those poor people!
At the next red light, I closed my eyes. Save those people, those women, those children, I prayed. I opened my eyes. The light was still red. I closed my eyes. How could people hurt other people like this? I wondered.
The car behind me tapped its horn. I opened my eyes and drove off, still thinking about people who sold and exploited people. The victims are women and children – are all of the perpetrators men? A woman’s life is not worth much in many parts of the world. You just need to see the global statistics of infanticide to come to that conclusion. A daughter is seen as a burden, weak and useless in carrying on the family name. The thought that baffles me is can a man really see his own flesh and blood as worthless? Can a man only see value in a daughter if he sells her? What about the mother of that daughter…what does she think? Better off dead than sold?
As I drove into my parking spot, I turned off the engine and closed my eyes. How many women really believe they’re worth nothing? How many men believe that to the point of thinking it’s OK to exploit women?
Lord Jesus, you love each and every one of us. We are not worthless. I opened my eyes. If God loves every one of us, he loves the exploiter as well as the exploited. Please God, change the heart of those who sell people.
I noticed my jaw was clenched, and so I took a deep breath. I stretched my mouth into a fake yawn. This red light prayer was not doing me any good. Could I mean what I was doing, praying for someone who preyed on the weak? Let me forgive them as you forgive us, Lord. I moved my jaw, and felt no pain. I undid my seatbelt and got out of the car, ready to face the day.