Who do YOU climb for?

People climb for many different reasons.  But we climb for the captives—the nearly 27 million men, women, and children who are bound in slavery and illicit human trafficking.

You will be shocked (and we hope you are) to know that  that, despite living at the historical zenith of wealth, political freedom, and self-actualization, there are more people living in slavery today than ever before.  The statistics are staggering and the total market value of illicit human trafficking is estimated to be in excess of US$32 billion (UN), or more money earned by Google, Nike, and Starbucks combined.

Although our history books teach us that slavery was abolished in the 1800s, the reality is that there are more slaves in the world today than ever before, and modern slavery manifests itself in a host of nefarious ways.  Forced labor, child soldiering, unjust detention, the commercial sex trade—slavery in the modern world knows no creative bounds.

As if a shadow cast beneath the extraordinarily active and interconnected global economy, human trafficking is quickly becoming the most expansive criminal industry in the world today, rivaling even the drug and arms trades.  The commercial sex trade perhaps epitomizes the cruelest forms of this practice, with each year, more than 2 million children are exploited in the global commercial sex trade (UNICEF).  Despite the almost universal outrage over this injustice, sex trafficking remains one of the most profitable form of human trafficking, manifesting as prostitution, pornography, bride trafficking, and the sexual abuse of children for profit.  This epidemic is not solely a “overseas” phenomenon either.  An estimated 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked annually in the United States alone and the number of US citizens trafficked within the country is estimated to be even higher with an estimated 200,000 American children being at risk for trafficking into the sex industry each year.

Driving this underground economy of slavery is, at heart, a worldview that regards people as commodities—whether inhumanely working a man and his family to exhaustion to pay off debt, or subjecting young children to service the sexually demented of our world, the modern day slave trade is empowered by a deranged mindset that aggressively defies the innate dignity in each and every person.

We hear often about the audacious claims by abolitionists to end the modern day slave trade which oppresses nearly 27 million people through forced labor, prostitution, and indentured servitude.  But what is the purported abolition of slavery without the restoration of the soil in which this ancient weed has sprouted, for as William Wilberforce so insightfully remarked, “God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners.”  There will be no abolition of slavery without the reformation of our society, and it is to this end we must labor.

So the question is not why we climb.  What we and our supporters know, is that it is the who we climb for that makes Climb For Captives so compelling:

We climb to give a voice to the voiceless.

We climb to give hope to the hopeless.

We climb to advance the modern day abolitionist movement.

We climb to inspire a generation to radical generosity, solidarity, and activism to end slavery in our lifetime.

**photo by ThEssenceOfFaith.  Statistics provided by Kevin Bales @ NotForSale, International Justice Mission, the UN, and UNICEF.

Climb For Captives 2009

Many of you joined me last year in the global fight against Human Trafficking by supporting the 2008 Climb for Captives.  As we continue preparing for the 2009 climb, which will be taking place on August 14-16th, we need your help to launch a global awareness campaign.  For this years climb we will be partnering with the International Justice Mission (www.IJM.org) to raise $40,000 to free slaves in India and we want to spread the word to EVERY corner of the globe!  We will be launching our new website on July 4th,  Independence Day here in the US, to signify our commitment to freedom for ALL, and we need your help to make the launch a success.

HERE is a video with instructions for how you can participate in our I Support Climb for Captives campaign.  Basically, we are trying to get as many of our friends around the globe to take photos of themselves with a sign that says “I Support Climb for Captives” (and has their city/country in parentheses) in front of famous landmarks in their area (i.e. Statue of Liberty, the White House, Mt. Rushmore, the Pyramids, Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall, etc).  We are trying to get photos from every state in the USA and every continent of the world!

We would like to have several pictures on the website by the time we go public on July 4th and that is why we need your help now.  If you could take some time in the next week to take a photo in your area it would be a huge help for us as we try to gain some momentum early in our launch.  You can either email the photos directly to me or send them to the site mentioned in the video.

Thanks again for your support and your friendship.  Stay tuned for other ways you can be involved in the 2009 Climb for Captives!