A NEW selection of resources has been made available online ahead of The Salvation Army's Annual Day of Prayer for Victims of Human Trafficking 2014. Sunday 28 September has been set aside as this year's day of prayer, when Salvation Army corps (churches) and centres around the world are encouraged to call on God, through focused prayer, to bring hope and freedom to the staggering number of people who are trafficked every year.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says that even though more people are becoming aware of the issue, the number of people being trafficked continues to rise: 'People trafficking is the fastest-growing means by which people are enslaved, the fastest-growing international crime, and one of the largest sources of income for organised crime ... There are even reports that some trafficking groups are switching their cargo from drugs to human beings, in a search of high profits at lower risk.' A report by the International Labour Organisation estimates that at least 44 per cent of the 21 million people who are victims of forced labour worldwide have been trafficked.
This is the eighth year that a day has been specifically set aside by The Salvation Army to pray for the victims of trafficking. As in 2011 and 2012, the Bible verse chosen as the theme for the 2014 day of prayer is Jesus' words from John 10:10: 'I have come that they may have life' (New International Version).
A powerful array of resources – including a sermon, Bible study, poem, prayer ideas, PowerPoint presentations and information about The Salvation Army's anti-trafficking ministry – can be accessed from a new anti-trafficking section of the International Headquarters (IHQ) website: www.salvationarmy.org/ihq/antitrafficking. The site includes a promotional poster which was created for the 2014 day of prayer by IHQ Communications Section designer Berni Georges. The English version and a blank version to allow the poster to be adapted into other languages are already available for download.
Further resources will be added to the site between now and September, including French and Spanish translations of the poster. More information about anti-trafficking ministry can be found in the July-September issue of The Salvation Army's international women's magazine, Revive.
