Blue Heart Campaign against Human Trafficking

25 July 2019

 Human Trafficking is a global crime, a modern – day slavery.  This is against respecting human dignity of Women, Men and Children. Many of the victims have no second chance to live their life to the full, in many cases there was no turning back for them.

The Blue Heart Campaign is a global awareness raising initiative to fight human trafficking and its impact in society. It seeks to encourage involvement from governments, civil society, the corporate sector and individuals alike, to inspire action and prevent this heinous crime. The Blue Heart Campaign is increasingly recognized as the international symbol against human trafficking, representing sadness of those who are trafficked while reminding us of the cold-heartedness of those who buy and sell fellow human beings. Two weeks before the session date a Blue Heart Campaign design and brief information about human trafficking were posted on the Centre wall to create curiosity and awareness for the residents.

On 25 July 2019, Good Shepherd Centre had an awareness session with regards to Human Trafficking.  The cartoon type videos :

https://youtu.be/DWoHgIoLCPg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35uM5VMrZas

were shown to the women and children. There were twelve residents of which six were children`who attended the session. The main focus of the video was to explain how Human Trafficking is operative through the ACT (recruiting, transporting, harbouring and receiving) MEANS (threats, force, abduction, deception, abuse of power, giving payment or benefits) and PURPOSE (exploitation). ACT + MEANS + PURPOSE = HUMAN TRAFFICKING. Sex trafficking and Labour trafficking for both men and children were highlighted in the video. The test questions that followed were to gauge the level of understanding and how much of the information stayed for both children and adults. This is an interesting part where each one helped each other to remember the significant information from the video as well as from the input. Each one was eager to receive chocolates as their prize.

Group sharing for adults and children were facilitated regarding their THOUGHTS and FEELINGS after watching the video.  The children felt scared, sad and wanted to cry. They see traffickers as bad people and targeting on children. The adults felt scared too, anxious, stress and emotionally weak. They shared that human trafficking is wrong and that we must not misuse human being. From the session one of the residents shared that we must do many awareness programme to help people know about human trafficking.

For the ACTION part, each one was invited to write down in the blue heart on “What I can do to help create an awareness about human trafficking or what to do if one experiences the act of trafficking?” The residents came up with the following responses:

• Make people understand and value lives and families.
• Do not trust strangers easily.
• Do not go with strangers and do not let strangers follow you.
• Spread the word: Be Brave, Be Courageous, Be Resilient.
• Go to Police station
• Help people to call the Police.
• We must do many awareness programmes to let people know about human trafficking.
• Teach people how to protect themselves
• Teach small children to be more alert.
• To pray for all the victims of human trafficking.

There will be Human Trafficking Session part 2 to implement the action plan (in-house) that the residents came up with.

The session ended up with a Peace Prayer where PEACE, LOVE and LIGHT energy were sent both to the victims and survivors as well as to the governments, non-governments organizations and civil societies who are advocating and working zealously to combat this global crime called Human Trafficking.

“What are we doing in this world and why are we here,

if not to contribute to the well-being of our neighbour?”       St.  Mary  Euphrasia

Written by:  Alona  Aguila