Look at an excerpt from an article we found in the Sunday Times, right here in Cape Town:
As we prepare to host the world’s biggest sporting event, large numbers of visitors have begun to arrive in South Africa. However, large sporting events are known to increase levels of sex trafficking...
…We [South Africa] have passed the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Amendment Act 32 of 2007, which criminalises buyers of women for sexual exploitation. Yet large numbers of women abusers, pimps, brothel and strip-club owners go unpunished. They are powerful men with money. They buy women's bodies and bribe police…
Wherever women and girls are impoverished or displaced they are at risk of traffickers…. Trafficking in women is not new. Slavery often involved trafficking and prostitution. Prostitution is the world's oldest form of oppression…. There [is] an understanding that prostitution was incompatible with the dignity of women and must be ended if trafficking was to be ended….
The demand for prostitution determines the supply. A strong call by men not to buy sex would eliminate demand and therefore supply. Mr. President [Zuma], South Africa must not become a pimp state.
Excerpted from an article in the Cape Town Sunday Times, written by Madlala-Routledge, head of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women - South Africa and its Embrace Dignity Campaign: http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/letters/...
While we don’t share all of the author’s views on men (the MST Project seeks the redemption of men – rather than their condemnation) we were so encouraged to find a South African voice who understands that men don’t have to be seen as a part of the problem, but rather men are a part of the solution.
Please continue to pray for us during this next week as we are working to eliminate demand and see many men who have come to South Africa from around the world experience God’s transforming love.
Written by: Iven H.
