Abstract
This volume is rather a dog’s breakfast, but it contains a good deal of valuable information, practical faith-based vision and theological analysis on the themes of contemporary slavery and human trafficking. This is one of the huge scandals of our time. The different authors and faith communities represented in this volume are agreed that none of us can pass by on the other side; we are all implicated in exploitation by our implacable desire for cheap and readily available goods and services. Faith communities have both a practical role in attempting to reach abused and vulnerable individuals and also a prophetic role in analysing the root causes of these global crimes and calling on governments and other agencies to develop better protections. The statistics are staggering: 10 million children, nearly 25 million in forced labour, over 15 million in forced marriages, nearly 5 million in forced sexual exploitation.
After a Foreword by Theresa May, the ‘Editor’s introduction’ and a scene-setting essay by Kevin Hyland, we are introduced to the human problem through three survivors’ stories: a Columbian woman coerced into prostitution in France; a homeless and vulnerable man from Manchester deceived by what appeared to be a job offer into forced labour in Austria; and a woman from India, victim of a forced marriage, compelled to work as a domestic servant in the UK. All three have received help from faith-based agencies, but the stories reveal how complex the webs of crime and exploitation are and how they freely operate across borders and boundaries. Dan Pratt, the editor, is a Baptist, and it is notable how many initiatives to support enslaved and trafficked people come from non-established church groups, although an essay from Alastair Redfern, the former bishop of Derby, explores the work of the Clewer Initiative into modern slavery which he chairs. There is, unsurprisingly, debate between faith groups about the most appropriate way to tackle the issues. The Clewer Initiative’s attempt to draw the public in through its Safe Car Wash app is heavily criticized by Myra Blyth and Joshua Findlay. Too often it is not recognized that vulnerable people face impossible choices – for some, being exploited by a car-wash operation might be preferable to the alternatives. It helps to recognize that vulnerable people think rationally. They are not ‘other’.
The more directly theological contributions explore familiar themes of the liberationist strands in Scripture, how the pastoral cycle might be employed to help interpret the experience of exploitation, and how the gospel vision of justice might be radically incompatible with contemporary globalized capitalism. This section concludes with a gem of an essay by the Baptist theologian Paul Fiddes on ‘Suffering, slavery and participation in the Triune God’.
It is a sobering read, and the sense of fragmentation is a reflection of the difficulty as well as the necessity of engaging theologically and practically with these human tragedies.