One of Amos' major charge against Israel is that basically good people ("the upright," "the poor") are being sold into debt-slavery for piddling sums ("for silver," "for a pair of sandals").
How little the world has changed. Debt-slavery is pandemic in this wonderful, modern, up-to-date world of ours. All across Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Gulf States, children are sold, or otherwise coerced, into child-labor, prostitution, etc.
There are so many reports on these issues that it is difficult to single out any for special attention. What I will do here is to cite articles representative of the issues in different parts of the world, None of these make for easy reading, but then reading Amos is not exactly a walk in the park either.
The first is by a remarkable woman, the Rev. Dr. Sirirat Pusurinkham - a United Church of Christ minister in Chiang Rai, Thailand, a northern city near the border with Myanmar (Burma) and Laos. In addition to pastoring a 350-member congregation, she teaches in two seminaries, oversees a drug rehab treatment facility, directs a micro-enterprise development project, and runs an AIDS ministry. Here, she reports on "Child Prostitution in Thailand" to an international gathering in Durban, South Africa. If you have doubts that this sort of stuff has anything to to with us here, notice her points about the role of the Vietnam War, and the role of "sex tourism" (mostly from Europe and the U.S.) in the origin and maintenance of much of this shocking trade, and the role of the Church in fighting it.
The next article takes us to Indonesia and a similar theme. My eye was caught here by a passage that could almost have come out of Amos:
"Like the children ‘employed’ as street beggars in Jakarta, or the underage workers in Bandung clothing factories, the journey of exploitation usually begins in their home village with a highly structured practice known as ‘ijon’.
"A broker will approach a poor family and offer a ‘loan’ of up to two million rupiah ($200). The family then repays the debt by bonding one of their children (usually a school age daughter) for a period of two years or more. Most families believe their child will be taken to the city for training as a domestic aide, handicraft worker, or even as a movie star. The reality couldn’t be further from the dream.
"Families rarely hear from their child again, and if they do, it is usually only after the two-year bonded period is served. The brokers colloquially refer to children acquired through ijon as ‘ayam potong’. While literally meaning ‘chopped chicken’, conceptually this term translates as a new prostitute (ayam), carved off (potong) from her family.
The complete text may be read here.
The third example is somewhat similar to the foregoing two, but is set in Latin America. It is a piece called "The Hill of the Goats: Solidarity with the Poor in Latin America," and is written by a Roman Catholic priest who is executive director of the NCCB Secretariat for Latin America, a priest of the Archdiocese of Boston who has served in the St. James Society as a missionary in Guayaquial, Ecuador from 1988-1994. What grabbed me here was Fr. Ronan's strong sense that the Church's call is into solidarity with the poor, and that the greatest sin against life might just be indifference. Click here for the full article.
Finally, here is the link to a site that has a variety of helpful books, films and videos that bear on the topic.
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