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Taskforce to be led by Commissioner Christine MacMillan.
The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) recently created a taskforce on human trafficking to raise awareness across its global community—representing 420 million evangelical Christians worldwide. The taskforce, headed by the WEA spokesperson on human trafficking Commissioner Christine MacMillan, who also serves as director of The Salvation Army’s International Social Justice Commission, aims to prevent and combat trafficking by developing strategic and effective actions and tools that will help equip local churches and their leaders to become responsive to the victims of human trafficking.
“The taskforce by conviction has the potential to develop skills of awareness for the WEA constituency,” MacMillan said. “Looking at the atrocity of human trafficking may invoke lament where, ‘tears flow like a river day and night’ (Lamentations 2:18a). Perhaps the taskforce is to release tears in God’s church as the door to which we produce strategic interventions of determination.”
According to MacMillan, the taskforce mandate is charged with the following outcomes:
– Awareness raising events with WEA members and surrounding communities.
– Community based projects in addressing intervention strategies in highly trafficked parts of our world.
– Engagement with regional United Nations offices in building collaborative think tanks and subsequent action.
– Empowerment of the local church to influence civil society in the back yards of our community.
– Bringing a social justice paradigm where there is an active presence in social service church mission.
– Raising the issue of intervention in human trafficking with vulnerable and at risk persons.
Resource materials for the local churches are already available and church projects, facilitated by taskforce members, are currently taking place in Eastern Europe, India, Canada and Australia.
“The anti-human trafficking taskforce holds to credence of action,” MacMillan said. “It embraces a spiritual worldview of unconditional compassion. Its love of God is intentional in encouraging society to live in communities of capacity and dignity in relationship. It views trafficking as an injustice to God’s desire to live in relationships of mutual respect.”
Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe, WEA international director, said, “It is a travesty that more than one person a minute is trafficked across borders every year. It is my hope and prayer that this WEA initiative will help mobilize and train our global community to respond in meaningful, effective and biblical ways. As Christ followers we must do all we can to help end the injustices of this worldwide calamity.”
The WEA is made up of 128 national evangelical alliances located in 7 regions and 104 associate member organizations. The vision of WEA is to extend the kingdom of God by making disciples of all nations and by Christ-centered transformation within society. WEA exists to foster Christian unity, to provide an identity, voice and platform for the 420 million evangelical Christians worldwide.
From a WEA press release
The International Weekend of Prayer and Fasting for Victims of Sexual Trafficking is Sept. 25-27, 2009.
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