Magic Statistics

A new report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation exposes Britain as a centre of human trafficking.  Over 5000 children are presently being compelled to work as sex slaves in the UK.  Thousands are bought and sold by international criminal gangs that victimise, intimidate, and exploit women and children as young as five.

The human trafficking trade now generates an estimated £5bn a year worldwide, making it the second biggest international criminal industry after the drugs trade. Children's charities in Britain say there has been a "dramatic" rise in referrals of trafficked children to sexual exploitation services.

An investigation by The Independent on Sunday has found that gangs, especially those from Romania and Lithuania as well as Africa, are increasingly targeting Britain because markets in other European countries such as Spain and Italy are saturated.
. . .
[T]he report finds that the UK's response to trafficking is too biased towards law enforcement at the expense of victim protection. It also reveals that many victims are deported to their home country where they face assault from gangs and the threat of being retrafficked. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is urging ministers to draw up policies that treat those in slavery as victims, not as immigration cases.
. . .
The Rowntree study was carried out by the University of Hull along with Anti-Slavery International and the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation.

A companion piece tells the story of a young teenager lured from Lithuania to Britain.  She was forced to work in a brothel.

Danielle was excited at the prospect of leaving her home in Lithuania for a summer job in Britain at the age of 15. The work had been arranged through a friend who was unable to join Danielle until later and so put her in touch with a man who would take her to London.

Danielle suspected nothing until the stranger took her passport once they passed through customs and left her with two Albanians and a Lithuanian woman. It turned out that she had been sold for £3,500. The "holiday job" was working in a brothel in Birmingham.

Danielle, now 18, finally managed to escape and return home.

A woman who runs a shelter for trafficked children in Romania says that this criminal enterprise, unlike drugs, is a “low-risk, high-income trade”.  The children don’t know their rights and typically have no support from their families, while the traffickers can afford the best legal help money can buy.

It is shocking to realise that slavery exists in the land that supposedly banned it two centuries ago.

Tony Blair promised last month to join a European campaign to eradicate slavery, but as yet he has not formally done so.

Archbishop of York John Sentamu led a service at York Minster this morning in honour of evangelical Christian and abolitionist campaigner William Wilberforce. 

Dr John Sentamu paid tribute to the former Hull MP to mark the 200th anniversary of the aboliton of the slave trade in the then British Empire.

The service included a performance by the choir of Pocklington school in East Yorks, which Wilberforce attended.

Some of Wilberforce's descendants were be among the hundreds at the service.

Today’s York Minster service is the first in a series of events and remembrances to be held in Britain this year to commemorate Wilberforce’s achievement.

In March it will be 200 years since the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed.

The Very Rev Keith Jones, Dean of York, recalled the night the Bill passed second reading in the House of Commons.

"On the night of February 23/24 1807, the Bill received its second reading in the House of Commons.

"It was a tremendous scene when at 4am, after a long debate, Wilberforce was cheered to the echo and tears streamed down his face."

In 1807, the slave trade was abolished, but not the institution of slavery itself.  It was not until 1833 that slavery was outlawed throughout the British Empire.  The news that his life’s work had been accomplished was delivered to Wilberforce on his deathbed, only hours before he passed away.

Wilberforce’s legacy lives on, and this anniversary is bringing renewed dedication to abolition of slavery around the world.  As the home page of Wilberforce 2007 reminds us, there are more slaves today than were seized from Africa in four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

The photo at right shows the statue of William Wilberforce at St John’s College, Cambridge.

Previous related posts:

• Is there such a thing as “Christian politics”?
• Monday morning prayer

The offertory hymn on the First Sunday in Lent at Christ Church Cathedral, Whitehorse. (Hymn #533 in the Anglican Church of Canada's hymn book, Common Praise.)

Jesus, Lover of my soul,
let me to thy bosom fly,
while the nearer waters roll,
while the tempest still is high:
hide me, O my Savior, hide,
till the storm of life be past;
safe into the haven guide,
O receive my soul at last.

Other refuge have I none,
hangs my helpless soul on thee;
leave, ah! leave me not alone,
still support and comfort me!
All my trust on thee is stayed;
all my help from thee I bring;
cover my defenseless head
with the shadow of thy wing.

Thou, O Christ, art all I want;
mor than all in thee I find;
raise the fallen, cheer the faint,
heal the sick, and lead the blind.
Just and holy is thy Name;
I am all unrighteousness;
false and full of sin I am;
thou art full of truth and grace.

Plenteous grace with thee is found,
grace to cover all my sin;
let the healing streams abound,
make and keep me pure within.
Thou of life the fountain art,
freely let me take of thee:
spring thou up within my heart,
rise to all eternity.

Words: Charles Wesley, 1740.
Music: Aberystwyth.

Charles Wesley, one of greatest hymn writers in the history of the church, was the younger brother of John Wesley.  Although both remained Church of England ministers all their lives, their work together in 18th-century Britain led to the rise of Methodism.  They were sons of Samuel Wesley, Anglican rector of Epworth, Lincolnshire, and Susanna Wesley, daughter of dissenting minister Samuel Annesley.

This year marks the tercentenary of Charles Wesley’s birth.  He was born 28 December 1707 in Epworth, and died 29 March 1788 in London.  He was buried at St Marylebone Parish Church, London.

“Jesus, Lover of My Soul” is generally recognised as one of the best of Charles Wesley’s 6500 hymns.  Some have called it the finest hymn in the English language.  It is found in almost every hymnal ever published and has been translated into most of the world’s languages.  Yet, when Charles’s brother John first read it, he did not like it, considering it too sentimental.  The hymn did not become popular until after the brothers had died.

The collect for today, the First Sunday in Lent, from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer:

O Lord, who for our sake didst fast forty days and forty nights; Give us grace to use such abstinence, that, our flesh being subdued to the Spirit, we may ever obey thy godly motions in righteousness, and true holiness, to thy honour and glory, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 6:1-10
The Gospel: St Matthew 4:1-11