What is the role of a man in the fight against human trafficking?

I read this awesome blog by a radical guy named Matthew Snyder. Today he posted a blog proposing the question: What is the role of a man in the fight against human trafficking? I immediately started typing away, and before I knew it, I had typed almost two pages single spaced... So I decided instead of posting it as a comment on his blog, I would answer his question on my own blog.

I believe the only way to eradicate human trafficking is to end demand. So what is the role of the man in fighting human trafficking? Set a standard for other men, to NEVER look at porn. Start a movement of pure men who are above the sex industry. Pornography is the "gateway drug" into sex trafficking. If there there were no men willing to pay to have sex, there wouldn't be girls on the streets selling their bodies. People put blame on the girls for being whores and the pimps for being traffickers, but I think the blame needs to be shifted to the johns. Those sluts are coerced captives. Those pimps are business men who are just as screwed up as the girls. It's the johns who started innocently looking at porn while their wives were nursing the babies in the other room. Then they were hooked and it became an addiction. Shortly, the videos and pictures just weren't enough. Their wives weren't putting out enough and were just normal. They needed something more. It's the johns who need to sleep with a prostitute.

Men need to make higher standards. Men need to eradicate the pornography industry because it's a drug just as bad as cocaine. Men need to start loving their families more than themselves. Men need to stop talking to their buddies about sex and start talking about holding one another accountable to not look at porn. Every time porn is accessed it creates demand for more. That demand leads to demand for sex to be sold. That demand for selling sex leads to 11 year olds being coerced by some cool guy who is ten years older than her who actually treats her nice and tells her that he loves her. Then the next thing she knows, she's agreeing to run away from home and move to Vegas with her "boyfriend." Then he tells her they need cash to survive, so he needs her to have sex with one of his friends; that it would make him so happy. She is in love, so of course she will. Suddenly, she's 17, her name is now "Princess," she's bottom ho, and brings in $1,500 a night.

Despite all that, women also need to set a higher standard for themselves. Dressing sleazy will never be considered a good thing. Girls need to have confidence and self-worth. However a lot of that comes from having strong fathers and father-figures in their lives, something that is definitely lacking these days.  Men just need to step it up.

That answer is mainly for ending human trafficking in America, but honestly, I feel like it goes for the entire world. When I was walking through Kamathipura, one of the main redlight districts in Mumbai, this summer, I looked into the eyes of the men on the streets and experienced how they saw me as a piece of meat, nothing more. Most of the world views women as possessions. That's just the way it is. To be completely honest, it sucks. I know I'm not going to be received in much of the ministry that I want to do because I'm female. In fact, I feel like I can't actually move to India to start my life until I get married, so that when I go into a hostile village in North India, I will have a man with me to help us be received rather than immediately rejected for my sex and skin color. Personally, I need a man who is going to spend hours in prayer with me and for me every time I walk into a brothel and talk to the girls. I need a man who is so above reproach that I won't have to worry when he and I walk through the redlight districts past scantily dressed women. I pray always for my future husband that his thoughts would be so focused on heaven and things above that he can't even see the devils schemes to reel in his thought life, because his thoughts have already been purchased and they belong to Jesus Christ.

Honestly, our society needs a wake up call. Our world needs a Savior. We were put on this earth to be salt and light, and I'm afraid a lot of todays "Christians" have lost their saltiness. I pray that through groups of us "burning ones" would begin to set the world on fire with the love of Jesus. We are called to be ministers of reconciliation, so let's get to it. There is a world in need. It's time to stand up for the cause of the poor and needy. Today is the day to speak up for the voiceless.