creative world justice okc

At last night’s Creative World Justice Gathering, we introduced a new justice issue, Human Trafficking, that we are going to be addressing.  If you weren’t able to make it out last night, I’ll try to give a brief summary of some what was discussed.  The issue of Human Trafficking, and in particular Sex Trafficking, is one that is quickly growing in attention, though there has been little progress made in our country (and even less in our state and city).

What is it? Human Trafficking (HT) is the recruitment, transportation, harboring, or receipt of people for the purposes of slavery, debt bondage, and servitude.  There are an estimated 27 million people around the world living in slave-like conditions.  HT is an extremely lucrative business with revenues in the tens of billions, greater than the combined revenues of Nike, Google, and Starbucks.  That’s hard to even imagine!

Who are the victims? The victims are often from our most vulnerable populations (runaways, refugees, aliens).  Approx 70% are female and 50% children.  The ages being demanded for sex trafficking are getting younger and younger, with an average entry age of 12 and an overall average of 14.  There is also a growing demand for disgruntled middle class white children via online chatrooms.  Follow the link to a short video about a girl who came out of this life: “Candace’s Story.”

Who is demanding it? 99% of the demand is created for men. 90% for white men.

Where is it happening? Basically everywhere!  Almost every country serves as either a Source, Transit, and/or Destination.  An est 50,000 victims are trafficking into or through the US each year.  The USA is the #1 destination for child sex trafficking.  And, YES, it is happening in Oklahoma City.  OKC is at the crossroads of four of the primary trafficking cities (Houston, Kansas City, Las Vegas, and Atlanta).  Watch a clip from a new documentary “Playground.”

What is being done? Very little.  Only a handful of shelters nationwide, none in OK.  Oklahoma law enforcement, social services, health care, and mental health workers are mostly untrained to deal with victims.  Only one (most unenforceable) state law on trafficking.

Oklahomans Against Trafficking Humans (OATH).  We are connecting with a grassroots organization that started in Tulsa and is just getting their start here in OKC.  The list of potential activities is huge: from Awareness Campaigns to Research to Outreach…the list is long.  Mark Elam told me that basically whatever we dream up and want to do, we can.

How can YOU get involved? We are going to continue the conversation in our monthly CWJ Gatherings.  But for those who really want to get involved, we are planning to meet for a few minutes prior (at 6:00PM) to the monthly OATH Meetings (2nd Tues of every month at the United Way at the SE corner of NW 28th & McKinley) to begin to brainstorm our part in addressing this issue.

If you have any interest in being a part of the CWJ response to human trafficking in OKC, please let me know.  I would love to chat over lunch or coffee sometime soon!  Call (405.694.8562) or email me (gary@convergenceokc.org).

Gary Caplinger

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This is a poem we used last night at the CWJ Gathering.  I think it really summarizes, in so many ways, where we are moving as a community and how we are discovering that we can really encounter God among the Stranger, the Tortured, the Wretched, the Abandoned, and the Fatherless ones.  Alicia helped us discover the important truth that when we welcome, sit beside, bathe, bear up, and raise up the least, “that we are offered the grace to heal the suffering of our King.”  I have pictured more and more recently how in serving the suffering, we are literal serving Jesus.  But to heal the suffering of our King?  Are we in some ways bringing healing to The Suffering Servant?  I’d love to hear some response to that idea…

“Don’t palm me off with your civil religion and your politely murmured prayers,
don’t hand me your filthy mammon or your barns of laundered cash.

Don’t flatter me with your pious words catechisms so crisp and clean.
I hate your victory chants in praise of what I’m not:
your oh so personal idol, middle class and mute.

But I am not silent to those with ears to hear:
I weep, I groan, I scream, and I am so weary
of your all too clever words your rituals and your rhymes;
your meaningless slick tokens of power-point and song.

So once more I’m going to tell you (if you really want to hear),
now this is what it means, now this is what it means to know me:

Go love the Hungry One with whom you must share your bread,
go welcome The Stranger who soils your silken bed,
go sit still beside the Tortured One and hear his anguished  cries,
go bathe the disfigured, Wretched One caress His weeping skin,
bear up the abused, Abandoned One bent beneath Her grief,
raise up the Fatherless One eating scraps from beneath your feet,

for this is what it means, for this is what it means to know me.

Look! to those with eyes to see
I hide my face, buried broken in the bodies of the least,
and offer you the grace to heal the suffering of your King,
for this is what it means, this is what it means,
this is what it means to know me.”

by Kristin Jack (Servants Asia Coordinator)

inspired by Jer 22:13-17; Isa 1:1-20; 58:1-14; Amos 5:21-24; Mat 25:31-46

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Just wanted to let everyone know about a new local issue our Creative World Justice group is looking at addressing.  Human Trafficking, in its many forms, is an issue that is now affecting most countries in the world.  And as much as our country, state, and city has tried to point out the problems in places like Cambodia, Nepal, Myanmar, etc, while closing our eyes to what was taking place right under our noses, this industry has firmly entrenched itself here.

OATH MEETING (TUES 6:30PM)

I have started making connections with a grassroots organization call Oklahomans Against Human Trafficking (OATH).  They have a more-established chapter in Tulsa and are just getting one started here in OKC.  I went to the first meeting last month and met with their director last week to talk about ways we could get involved.  The next monthly meeting is tomorrow, Tuesday, at 6:30PM at the United Way (1444 NW 28th St).  I would love to have a few of you join me as the group begins to break up into action teams.

CREATIVE WORLD JUSTICE GATHERING (SUN 5:00PM)

Starting this Sunday night, we are going to begin taking one Sunday Gathering each month to bring some of the issues our Creative World Justice group has been investigating to the wider community.  We will look at how justice themes are consistently present throughout the story of God and creation.  This month I will share some thoughts about Human Trafficking and begin to dream of some avenues to educate the people of OKC, to stand up against the oppressor, and walk in solidarity with the victims.

OKLAHOMA’S FIRST HUMAN TRAFFICKING CONFERENCE (THURS, OCT 22)

OATH’s Tulsa Chapter has organized the first ever conference in Oklahoma on Human Trafficking.  It will be at the Mabee Center in Tulsa next Thursday from 9AM – 3PM.  Also, the night before at 7PM, they will be screening “CALL + RESPONSE,” a documentary to bring awareness to the issue of Human Trafficking.  The movie will be followed by a panel discussion from some of the conference speakers.  For those interested in joining me at the conference, please register at http://www.oathconference.us/register.html.  Also, if you are thinking about going, let me know so you can catch a ride up to Tulsa with me.

I hope to see you at one of these CWJ related events over the next couple of weeks.  Please feel free to call (405.694.8562) or email (gary@convergenceokc.org) with questions or thoughts.

“Being Brave for Those Afraid”

Gary Caplinger

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Following are some links to a number of recent news stories on the situation in the DR Congo (the violence against women & some of the issues that have perpetuated the violence).  I think it is really important to be well informed on the whole picture of the situation there.  I’d love to get some responses to the articles, audio, and video, so we can all process this together.

Faced with a Gun, what can you do? (by Global Witness)

Report, press releases, audio, and other documents about the war and militarization of mining in eastern Congo.

Blood Coltan (by thedossier.ukonline.co.uk)

Documentary video explaining the source of much of the conflict, a rare mineral called Coltan that is critical to the electronics in mobile phones.

Sexual violence, torture surging in Congo: Oxfam (July 14 by AFP)

Info on how the occurrences of rape and torture are continuing, and even surging this year.

Press Conference on Situation in Democratic Republic of the Congo (July 10 by the U.N. Press)

UN assessment of the current situation.

DR Congo troops accused of rapes (July 2, 2009 by BBC News)

US-based Human Rights Watch says thousands have been raped by rebels and soldiers in the past six months. And it says the UN, with 12,000 peacekeepers backing the troops, risks becoming “complicit” in the atrocities.

DR Congo: Massive Increase in Attacks on Civilians (July 2 by Human Rights Watch)

The attacks on civilians from all sides have resulted in a significant increase in human rights violations over the past six months.

A Broken U.N. Promise In Congo (June 30 by Eve Ensler in Washington Post)

The (poor) implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1820.

Conflict in Congo (June 16 by the International Crisis Group)

A general explanation of the situation, as well as info on their ideas/suggestions for response.

Mass Stigma Scars Congo’s Rape Survivors (Oct 10, ’08 by Dominique Soguel of WeNews)

A psychologist in a Congo hospital says decades of war have produced a rape-friendly culture with a double standard. While perpetrators go unpunished the victims, including children, are ostracized.

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We’re gaining momentum with Creative World Justice.  The “third thursday” of July is TOMORROW (July 16).  So, join us at the Convergence Collective at 6:30m for our monthly Justice time together.  Here’s the plan for tomorrow night…

SKYPE WITH BRUCE – We will be recording a live video conversation with Bruce (from Cambodia) via Skype.  This will be your chance to ask him some questions about his new life and culture.  I know he’s going to want to share some potential avenues for CWJ_OKC to be a voice for B-land.  We will be using the video from our q&a with him to shape the Gathering this weekend.  I know it would be a huge encouragement for him to have several of you there for him to see your faces and hear your voices.  *** If you have a specific questions for Bruce, but can’t make it to the mtg, reply to this post/email with your question. ***

SHOP GOOD – We’ll also spend some time evaluating the first Shop Good from last Friday and talk about specific plans for next month’s store.

WANW – Finally, we keep pushing forward with Women Are Not Weapons.

Hope to see you tomorrow night, and bring your friends!!  Gary (694.8562)

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One of the action items from our June meeting involves our partnership with some other local friends (Wandering Wear, Spero, and others) to open a new fair-trade store on LIVE! on the Plaza nights in July and August.  LIVE is the second friday of every month at the Plaza District (16th Street between Classen & Penn).  We are going to turn the area in front of the Convergence space into a “third world market,” which basically means huge cardboard booths for vendors decorated with a third world market kind of feel.

Come shop where you know EVERY purchase will benefit a local or global cause impacting communities for good.  There will be a wide variety of items for sale and just as wide a variety of beneficiaries, so you’ll get to change the world in a lot of ways just by visiting one store! Creative World Justice will have a booth where we will sell Women Are Not Weapons shirts and share with shoppers more about what we are doing.

We need VOLUNTEERS:

- SETUP of the market the afternoon/evening before the store opens

- STREET TEAM to walk around the plaza and spread the word about SHOP GOOD

- people to WORK OUR BOOTH (Creative World Justice…Women Are Not Weapons)

- TEAR DOWN after the store

*** Please reply/comment on this post if you would like to help this Friday, July 10.  Or you can email Gary (gary@fusionokc.com) to help or for more info. ***

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This month our Creative World Justice group will continue the conversation and planning on Women Are Not Weapons, our response to the extreme sexual violence taking place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  We will get status updates and layout plans for moving forward on each of the areas of focus:  Information, Restoration, and Prevention.

As part of the conversation, we will specifically address how we can share the story and potentially raise some funds at the July Plaza Live! event on July 10.

Hope you can make it on Thursday!  Consider bringing a friend along.

“For those afriad, help us be brave”

Gary

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Here’s a quick recap of our May Creative World Justice OKC meeting…

INFORMATION:

-  Scott finished the CWJ Website (cwjokc.com), the CWJ blog (here), and the Women Are Not Weapons Website (wanw.org).  These will be the primary places to which we will begin to point people interested in who we are and what were are doing.

-  Jeff is working on getting the word out about WANW.  Some potential opportunities are the Catalyst Podcast, OKC Gazette, etc.

-  Scott is helping us team-up with Wandering Wear for the July/August Plaza LIVE! (in the Plaza District OKC) to make and sell WANW t-shirts with information cards to support restoration of victims and their communities.

PREVENTION:

-  Kevin is looking into avenues for prevention.

RESTORATION:

-  Gary is looking for opportunities to connect with organizations currently working in the Congo (DRC), such as Vday.org, Women for Women, the Panzi Hospital, Enough Project, etc.

Please reply to this blog if you want to get involved with any of the actions above or have other ideas for WANW, and we will get you connected to the right person.

Remember, our next meeting is JUNE 18 at 6:30pm at Convergence.  Hope to see you there!!

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Welcome to the new Creative World Justice – Oklahoma City blog!  Thanks to Scriv for setting it up and doing the design work.

We hope this will be a place for more people to get involved in our CWJ Actions.  This blog will be used to post info about upcoming meetings, notes following the meetings, info on actions that are being planned, all of the stuff on Women Are Not Weapons (wanw.org), as well as stories, videos, and thoughts on future issues that CWJ will be addressing.

Please jump in the conversation!  Even if you can’t make it out to all of the meetings (on the third thursday of every month at 6:30pm at the Convergence Collective – 1775 NW 16th St OKC), we would love your involvement and feedback on the blog and through participation in our creative actions against injustice.

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