A Biblical Reflection on Trafficking in Persons

by Sheila Smith RSCJ

Trafficking in persons has been described as a modern form of slavery. It is a serious human rights violation and is reported by the United Nations to be the fastest growing form of transnational organized crime.

According to Article 3 of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, "Trafficking in persons" shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs;

Therefore, trafficking in persons is a serious crime that involves:
  • the movement of people across or within borders;
  • threats or use of force, coercion and deception; and
  • exploitation, whether forced labour, forced prostitution, or other forms of servitude
Slavery is the oldest form of abuse in human history, especially the sexual slavery of women and children. When we look in the Bible, it is clear that freedom from slavery is a theme that runs like a thread throughout both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Perhaps the most well known example is the Exodus event in the Hebrew scriptures (See the Book of Exodus). This is the defining event in the life of the people Israel, when they are freed from the forced labour and dominance of their oppressors and become servants of God.

"For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves are sold."(Leviticus 25:42)

It may seem surprising that upon being freed, the Jewish people of the time use the master-slave metaphor to define their relationship with God. Even in the later Christian scriptures we still encounter this language of slavery. For example, in Luke's gospel, Mary, the mother of Jesus, proclaims herself to be the handmaid (female slave) of the Lord (master).

In traditional biblical interpretations of the annunciation story in Luke 1, Mary's passive consent to a virginal conception preserves her purity and sexual innocence. Her yes allows the plan or dream of another (God) to be fulfilled. She is a vessel to be used in conformity to God's plan.

Jane Schaberg's feminist analysis of Mary as servant or slave offers another interpretation*. According to Schaberg, a new understanding around the element of consent can bring a liberating aspect to this story. Mary's consent demonstrates, not her powerlessness and victimhood, rather it affirms her inner freedom, her autonomy, her own inner wisdom, as well as her freedom from human masters*. Although the patriarchal culture in which Mary lived enabled the disempowerment of women, making them dependant on men, Mary encounters a God who protects her outside of the patriarchal social order (in her irregular pregnancy) and whose creative presence dwells within her. This is the God who gives life to Jesus.

Today, just as in biblical times, the master-slave dynamic is very much alive. All around the world in our male-dominated, social-economic-political systems, trafficked persons are at the lowest level of human society.

Today we have women, men and children, and sometimes entire families, ( ) enslaved in a variety of ways, including enforced agricultural labour, brick making, mining, charcoal production, jewellery making, cloth and carpet making, domestic work, as well as in false adoptions, mail-order bride arrangements, sex tourism and coerced prostitution. **

The mistreatment of trafficked persons, their powerlessness, largely due to poverty, and the abuse of their human rights are enabled by underlying values that promote attitudes such as profit before people. Treated like disposable objects, trafficked persons are powerless and dependant on those whose wills they are forced to comply with.*** In order to feed a consumer-driven, materialistic lifestyle, someone, somewhere in the world has to produce, massively, efficiently and cheaply to keep up with the demand. In order to keep up with the global demand for pornography and prostitution, millions of women, children and men are sold over and over again for profit. How can we say that slavery has been abolished? Is this not reminiscent of the master-slave model of old when other empires have been built on the backs of the poor?

Just as in biblical times, persons who are trafficked have little or no protection in many countries in the world, including Canada. The symbolic Egypt has become a new land colonized by economic globalization. In the Fall of 2005, the Government of Canada passed a law criminalizing trafficking and made it possible for the first time to prosecute a trafficker in Canada for the crime of human trafficking, but we have yet to fulfill our international obligations to fully protect trafficked persons in our legislation.****

An encounter with the God of Mary, the God Jesus fully incarnated, gives us hope in the midst of the seemly irreversible and horrific situation of global human trafficking. Like Mary and Jesus, casting our lot with the future, we too respond with courage***** in our time to the root causes of human trafficking, such as poverty. Like Mary and Jesus, acting outside of the male-dominated social order is not easy. Blessing our broken world, still governed by oppressive, male-dominated systems, politically, socially, economically, religiously … with our faith and our courage we act with hearts that are created for encounters with a God who protects outside of the patriarchal social order and whose creative presence dwells within all people and all life.

This reflection first appeared in the Summer 2006 edition of Making Waves, an ecumenical feminist journal published by the Women's Inter-Church Council of Canada (WICC). The issue was devoted entirely to the global problem of human trafficking, especially how it affects women and children. For ordering information: www.wicc.org

* For an interpretation of Mary as servant or slave, see Jane Schaberg, The Illegitimacy of Jesus: A Feminist Interpretation of the Infancy Narratives, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, Biblical Seminar Series no. 28, 1995: 135-138.
* Ibid.,138.
** Eileen Kerwin Jones, "Sex in the City: Human Trafficking and the Sexual Exploitation of Women and Children", Counselling and Spirituality Volume 25, no. 1 (Spring 2006): 73-100.
*** For a developed analysis of the commodification of human beings, see Kevin Bales, Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
**** On May 11, 2006, the Canadian Minister of Citizenship and Immigration announced new measures to provide trafficked persons with a temporary residency permit. The details of how this will be implemented at all levels of government and civil society have not yet been worked out, but it is one positive step towards eventual legislation. There have yet to be any laws implemented in Canada to protect Canadians trapped in domestic trafficking.
***** Elisabeth Johnson, Truly Our Sister: A Theology of Mary in the Communion of Saints, New York: Continuum, 2005: 254
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