As Fire Races...

There are many facets to human trafficking.  No one working in this factory may have been trafficked but then again, many could be as the definition of human trafficking includes those forced to work, as summarized by the United States State Department is: 

"Over the past 15 years, “trafficking in persons” and “human trafficking” have been used as umbrella terms for activities involved when someone obtains or holds a person in compelled service.

The United States government considers trafficking in persons to include all of the criminal conduct involved in forced labor and sex trafficking, essentially the conduct involved in reducing or holding someone in compelled service. Under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act as amended (TVPA) and consistent with the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (Palermo Protocol), individuals may be trafficking victims regardless of whether they once consented, participated in a crime as a direct result of being trafficked, were transported into the exploitative situation, or were simply born into a state of servitude. Despite a term that seems to connote movement, at the heart of the phenomenon of trafficking in persons are the many forms of enslavement, not the activities involved in international transportation."

This article reports on a factory fire in Bangladesh.  This paragraph jumped out at me: 

"Bangladesh has some 4,000 garment factories, many without proper safety measures. The country annually earns about $20 billion from exports of garment products, mainly to the United States and Europe."

As well as this statement:

"Had there been at least one emergency exit through outside the factory, the casualties would have been much lower," he said.

Safety standards in other countries are not what ours are and this very well be simple laziness on the part of the factory owner - the idea that if I don't "have" to do something for my workers, I'm not going to because it will cost money.  We won't know for a while, if anyone ever reports on it again.  An investigation will be conducted, so the article says but... we'll see what, if anything comes from it.


Proverbs 31:8-9

A U.S. Prostitution Ring Busted

Saw this article via Yahoo this afternoon. 

Human trafficking victims freed in U.S. prostitution bust



Proverbs 31:8-9