This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
As everybody knows this election season, politicians aren't very well liked by many ordinary Americans around the country. A lot of what's frustrating us is that those elected to serve the interests of their state, their citizens, and their nation are instead using their positions of power to stop others from doing something worthwhile.
A prime example of the "wrecking ball" approach to public service is the hold that Utah Sen. Mike Lee has placed on the "End Modern Slavery Initiative," EMSI. EMSI, if enacted, would create an historic public-private partnership to fund the rescue of enslaved children and adults and to help local law enforcement around the world apprehend, prosecute and imprison those who make a killing off their bodies. This bill provides a window of opportunity for our elected leaders to use their political power in the service of worthwhile impact.
Slavery is an immensely profitable crime — reaping $150 billion in profit from the bodies of their victims. Those reaping these kinds of profits don't give up the source of their wealth — slaves — easily. But organizations like International Justice Mission (a Christian organization) have seen that sex trafficking plummets when local police and courts do their job and prosecute criminals. Data from IJM's partnerships with governments of the Philippines and Cambodia show that when traffickers face the real prospect of arrest and imprisonment, they get out of the business.
The U.S. provides more funding to combat slavery than any other country in the world, but it's a pittance compared to what is needed. EMSI represents for the first time an opportunity for the U.S. to share the cost of freedom with other donors, like our European allies as well as private citizens.
Lee's office says that he is holding up EMSI on grounds that its funding might be used to pay for abortions. But if that were true, why would the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference and the National Right to Life Committee report that they have no problems with the bill? Sen. Bob Corker and other senators supporting EMSI have taken scrupulous care to focus the fund on the rescue and protection of slaves and of law enforcement to create criminal deterrence. There are plenty of organizations to which donors can contribute if they want to fund abortions. EMSI isn't one of them.
The fact of the matter is this: Women and children in forced prostitution — sex slavery — are all too familiar with abortion. It is very common for brothel owners and pimps to require abortions when the girls and women they "own" become pregnant.
A survey of 107 survivors of sex trafficking in the U.S. reveals the horrors of forced prostitution that included forced abortion, forcible unprotected sex, beatings, attempted suicide and severe mental illness. One of the 107 women interviewed had had 17 abortions. In all, the group experienced 114 abortions while trafficked and enslaved. (The study is published in the Annals of Health Law from Loyola University in Chicago.)
Enslaved adults and children around the world need freedom. The End Modern Slavery Initiative is the best opportunity of our lifetimes to help them. The church that I pastor houses a congregation of refugees and immigrants from Myanmar — many who know the agonies of the sex slave industry.
Sen. Lee, will you please use your power as an elected official for the service of those you represent and lift your hold on EMSI so that it can come to the floor for a vote? I will be traveling to Washington D.C. in April to meet about this issue.
Phil Hughes is the pastor of Mount Olympus Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City.