Siddharth Kara, author of Sex Trafficking

Here is a video of Siddharth Kara and a synopsis of his book below. I haven't had a chance to read his work yet, but I just finished listening to a podcast he did with the Carnegie Council. It was encouraging to hear about this man putting his talent to work helping the helpless. It was terrible to hear about the horrid events that are taking place all over the world at this time.


Kara, a former investment banker and executive, uses theoretical economics and business analysis to propose measures that could eradicate sex trafficking by undermining the profitability of the illegal activities associated with the crime. At considerable personal risk and expense — he is nearly attacked by a gang of pimps in Mumbai — the author penetrates seedy underworlds and forced labor markets to meet the women and children in the dungeon of human disgrace in Asia, Europe and the U.S. He highlights ubiquitous and disturbing trends — the heavy involvement of law enforcement agencies and personnel in trafficking and slavery. His evidence indicates the urgent need for action — a woman or child is trafficked for sexual exploitation every 60 seconds.

According to Kara, there are some key components of the sex trade:
-economic deprivation makes individuals vulnerable to exploitation
-victims are quickly broken down by physical and psychological torture
-trafficking victims often endure a cycle of exploitation, and even if they do manage to escape, they are thrown back into the same conditions that led to their initial enslavement.

Kara identified two principal drivers of the sex trade industry as high profitability and extremely low risk. Worldwide sex trafficking brought in $35.7 billion in 2007, making it the most profitable illicit industry next to the drug trade. In India, profits of approximately $12,900 per slave per year can be generated by exploiting sex slaves, while the only criminal penalty for the practice is a $44 fine for owning a brothel.

Even when stiff penalties are written into law, levels of prosecution and conviction of sex slave exploiters tend to be minor, due to corruption, poor witness protection programs, insufficient evidence gathering, a lack of cross-border cooperation, and other factors.

The best near-term solution to the illicit sex trade, according to Kara, is to reduce aggregate demand by attacking the industry's profitability. Commercial sex is a highly elastic product, so as price increases, consumer demand decreases. In order to attack profitability, Kara recommends elevating risk.

Kara outlines seven tactics to reduce demand, elevate risk, and shorten the duration of enslavement:
-the creation of an international slavery and trafficking inspection force similar to United Nations weapons inspectors
-community vigilance committees trained to report signs of potential slavery to local police or trafficking inspection force
-targeted, proactive raids on establishments suspected of slave-like exploitation
-increased funding for salaries to police, border patrol, prosecutors, and judges to decreased risk of corruption
-special fast-track courts to prosecute crimes, with international observers and judicial review
-fully funded witness protection for slaves
-increased financial penalties associated with sex-slave crimes

Perichoresis

Perichoresis:

Genuine acceptance removes fear and hiding, and creates freedom to know and be known. In this freedom arises a fellowship and sharing so honest and open and real that the persons involved dwell in one another. There is union without loss of individual identity. When one weeps, the other tastes salt. It is only in the Triune relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit that personal relationship of this order exists, and the early Church used the word "perichoresis" to describe it. The good news is that Jesus Christ has drawn us within this relationship, and its fullness and life are to be played out in each of us and in all creation.

From God Is For Us, by C. Baxter Kruger.

"One" video by Matisyahu

Musician Matisyahu is the personification of harmony. He is a Hasidic Jewish musician from New York City known for blending traditional Jewish themes with reggae, rock, and hip-hop sounds. He pushes musical boundaries by incorporating a variety of genres to create unique sounds with deep messages that aim to unite and uplift. Matisyahu once said, "All of my songs are influenced and inspired by the teachings that inspire me. I want my music to have meaning, to be able to touch people and make them think. Chasidism teaches that music is 'the quill of the soul.' Music taps into a very deep place and speaks to us in a way that regular words can't." Listen to one of his latest songs 'One Day', which he created as an anthem for hope and a source of inspiration for people struggling to open their hearts and stay positive.

Laughing With God

Here is a random gem that I came across on the ride to work. I don't know much about Regina Spektor or her music, but so far I like it :)

Laughing With

In solidarity

If anyone is on twitter, set your location to Tehran and your time zone to GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location/timezone searches. The more people at this location, the more of a logjam it creates for forces trying to shut Iranians' access to the internet down. Cut & paste & please pass it on.

D-day

I have watched this show numerous times, and it repeatedly manages to hold my attention. The acting is fantastic. The story is compelling. The challenge of dealing with a world at war... thought provoking.

Band of Brothers is a 2001 ten-part television World War II miniseries based on the book of the same title written by historian and biographer Stephen Ambrose. It was executive produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks after their successful collaboration on the Academy Award-winning World War II film Saving Private Ryan. The episodes first aired in 2001 on HBO.

The narrative centers on the experiences of E Company ("Easy Company") of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment assigned to the 101st Airborne Division, from Easy's basic training at Toccoa, Georgia, through the American airborne landings in Normandy, Operation Market Garden, the Battle of Bastogne and on to the end of the war.

The events portrayed are based on Ambrose's research and recorded interviews with Easy Company veterans. A large amount of literary license was taken with the episodes, and other reference books will highlight the differences between recorded history and the film version. All of the characters portrayed are based on actual members of Easy Company; some of them can be seen in prerecorded interviews as a prelude to each episode (their identities, however, are not revealed until the close of the finale)

The human aspect of this story puts it in a league of its own. Setting it a part from other war stories such as Saving Private Ryan and Flags of Our Fathers (the latter being a fantastic book, but not movie).

Anyways, with the anniversary of D-Day, it got me thinking of this show.

20 years on: Memories of Tiananmen

On 3-4 June 1989, hundreds - possibly thousands - of Chinese protesters were killed when their call for democracy on Beijing's Tiananmen Square was brutally crushed.

I remember watching these events unfold on TV...safe...at home. I was too young to comprehend what was taking place. I distinctly remember thinking (about the above photo) that guy is going to get squished! I couldn't comprehend his bravery.

Years later, still mostly unaware of what took place there, I randomly met a man that would change all of that. I was in Italy walking through some ancient ruins when a stranger and I started to talk. He was a nice guy, full of life, yet very alone. Over the course of the day I got to know him. We went for lunch, coffee, and just hung out. As it turned out, he was one of the student protesters in Tiananmen square. He shared with me the events he experienced during that time and afterward when he fled the country. It was an amazing encounter, and one that I cherish.

One of the last things he said about those days was, if he had to do it again, he would not have protested, which led to bloodshed. He would have joined the party and promoted change from the inside out. Then he smiled at me and said, "That is what my friends I left behind are doing right now."

Reflections on North Korea

I have been thinking a lot about the situation in North Korea. Since China is a very influential force in NK, at first I found it hard to believe that they were sitting by letting NK fire off missiles and detonate a nuclear bomb. I found it hard to believe, knowing that these actions would only anger the US and push Japan towards militarization; two things that would only serve to interfere with China's economic pursuits. Then I read on the BBC a quote by Ma Xiaotian, deputy chief of general staff of China's People's Liberation Army.

"Our stand on the issue is consistent. We are resolutely opposed to nuclear proliferation."

"Our view is that the Korean peninsula should move towards denuclearisation," Mr Ma told the summit.

"Our hope is that all parties concerned will remain cool-headed and take measures to address the problem."

It was the second sentence that really caught my attention. What if China was allowing (or even promoting) NK to nuclearize in order to gain an advantage in the 6 party talks. This advantage might strengthen the Chinese position of "denuclearization" by forcing the US to withdraw their own arsenal in order to put an end to the NK nuclear program. I have no evidence of this, just thinking out loud here :)

Twitter

Boredom maybe just got the best of me, but I just signed up with Twitter. I always criticized Twitter, feeling that random short updates on my life were boring, trivial, and who cares? So I thought I would see what Twitter had to say about their product. Here is why Twitter thinks I should use their service:

Why? Because even basic updates are meaningful to family members, friends, or colleagues—especially when they’re timely.

• Eating soup? Research shows that moms want to know.
• Running late to a meeting? Your co–workers might find that useful.
• Partying? Your friends may want to join you.

1. Nope, mum does not care if I am eating soup.
2. Nope, my coworker is my wife. Therefore, if I am running late for work so is she.
3. Nope, I haven't "partied" in over a decade (literally).
   

Hmmm... maybe Twitter really isn't for me.

Surprised by Hope

So I have just started Surprised by Hope. My wife read this one a while back while I was working on my thesis, and I wanted to join her but couldn't for lack of time. Now that I have some time, I thought I would dive in and see why she liked it so much. So far, I am really enjoying it. Here is an excerpt that really got me thinking:

Karl Marx famously spoke of religion as the opium of the people. He supposed that oppressive rulers would use the promise of a joyful future life to try to stop the masses from rising in revolt. That has indeed often been the case. But my impression is that religion is an 'opium' when the religion in question includes the Platonic downgrading of bodies and of the created order in general, regarding them as the "vain shadows" of earth, which we happily leave behind at death. Why try to improve the present prison if release is at hand? Why oil the wheels of a machine that will soon plunge over a cliff? That is precisely the effect created to this day by some devout Christians who genuinely believe that "salvation" has nothing to do with the way the present world is ordered.

Free Time

Well, with my thesis handed in for the second review I am finding myself with an amount of free time that I haven't experienced in two years... and I am gorging! All of the reading, documentaries, and videos that I have put on the shelf over the last two years are now being consumed. Currently, I am reading Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet, by Jeffrey D. Sachs. One paragraph on forging cooperation really got me thinking. Sachs states,

"The forging of nationwide commitments was hardest in societies like the US, which are divided by race, religion, ethnicity, and class, and the native born versus immigrants. Social-welfare systems proved to be most effective and popular in ethnically homogeneous societies, such as Scandinavia, where people believed that their tax payments were "helping their own." The US, racially and ethnically the most divided of all the high-income countries, is also the only high-income country without national health insurance. Even within the national borders of divided societies, human beings have a hard time believing that they share responsibilities and fates with those across the income, religious, and perhaps especially, racial divide" (p. 5).

I guess what really struck me about this paragraph is that I had never thought about it being an issue of "otherness" when it came to social safety networks. Speaking as a Canadian, whose society is just as diverse, I wouldn't have thought of this as being a factor. Maybe it is, what do you think?

Premiere: "War/No More Trouble" Playing for Change

This is the fourth Song Around The World video released from the CD/DVD Playing For Change: Songs Around The World and the follow up to the classics "Stand By Me," "One Love" and "Don't Worry." This unforgettable track was performed by musicians around the world adding their part to the song as it traveled the globe.

Order the CD/DVD Playing For Change Songs Around The World" now at amazon.com!

It’s 2009. Do You Know Where Your Soul Is?

Here is an excerpt from an interesting Op-Ed in the NY Times written by Bono:

Lent is upon us whether we asked for it or not. And with it, we hope, comes a chance at redemption. But redemption is not just a spiritual term, it’s an economic concept. At the turn of the millennium, the debt cancellation campaign, inspired by the Jewish concept of Jubilee, aimed to give the poorest countries a fresh start. Thirty-four million more children in Africa are now in school in large part because their governments used money freed up by debt relief. This redemption was not an end to economic slavery, but it was a more hopeful beginning for many. And to the many, not the lucky few, is surely where any soul-searching must lead us.

Click here for the full text.

Human Rights Quotes

When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.

Dom Helder Camara:

Growth Quote

... the 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: The growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.

Alex Carey: Australian social scientist,
quoted by Noam Chomsky in
World Orders Old and New