April 2013
June 2012
By Meredith Curry
S
ex trafficking of women and children is happening right here in our YubaSutter community. Women are being sold from vans in our farm fields. Elementary and junior high girls are sold by family members for drugs. High school girls are sold by boyfriends. These are anecdotes heard during interviews with law enforcement and providers of victim care in our community. And there was the January 31st Appeal Democrat article “Brothel Network in Yuba City,” describing a Central Valley human trafficking ring that moved vulnerable women from location to location, selling them for sex. One of these locations was on Garden Highway right here in Yuba City. When I taught elementary students in this community, one student’s social worker called before school one morning to tell me the student would be absent from school that day. The night before, her mother had left her as drug
“We live in a community with a long history of sexual exploitation” payment in a man’s apartment. She was at the hospital. This little girl was seven years old.
NOT ON MY WATCH
We live in a community with a long history of sexual exploitation. It is well documented that at least as far back as the Gold Rush, women and children were sold for sex. Chinese women and girls were kidnapped and brought or lured to our community where they were brutally treated and sold for sex. Other women were kidnapped or lured into prostitution. Even into the 1970’s, stories abound about prostitution on Marysville’s D Street. Our community has allowed this evil to continue. For over 160 years, we have turned a blind eye to sexual exploitation of women and children. Have we considered that modern day slavery exists right here in our hometown? Fellow Christ followers, fellow community members, it is time to repent for the sins of our community, to bring
light into darkness, and to participate with God in his work of reconciliation and restoration. Churches, will we unite to bring hope and healing where there is none now? The prophet Micah called the Israelites to repentance with these words: “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God,” (Micah 6:8). Let us hear these words today as our call to repentance and to action. Our response to this call is Restoration Railroad, a network of community members who offer themselves as resources to meet the aftercare needs of survivors of exploitation right here in Yuba-Sutter. To launch this effort, we offer “Not On My Watch 2013: A Yuba-Sutter Human Trafficking Symposium”. This community-wide meeting will educate us about human trafficking, what it looks like in Yuba-Sutter, and how others are
Vital Facts on Human Trafficking
Religious Liberty in Peril....? P. 13
Hijacked K-12 P. 8 Niceclara is a Child Who Needs Help p. 16
Ambassador Prayer Calendar p. 15
Page 7 responding to meet the needs of survivors of exploitation. You will have the oppor-
Cont. on page 4
The Ambassador
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