Review of Slave Stealers: True Accounts of Slave Rescues Then and Now, by Timothy Ballard
Ballard founded Operation Underground Railroad in an effort to free children from trafficking organizations worldwide. The strategy of O.U.R. is shaped in part by the work of the original Underground Railroad in freeing slaves from the American South. This book shares stories from both eras.
I was drawn to this book because I have read several biographies from the Civil War era, including the biography of Harriet Jacobs who was featured in this book. Modern child-trafficking has many parallels with the slave trade, preying on innocent victims for immoral purposes. As in the 1800s, we need to raise awareness of what is really happening in the world around us so that we can be motivated and take action to put an end to it. For example:
“Human trafficking… is the fastest growing criminal enterprise on the planet. With thousands of children currently forced into the commercial sex trade in the United States, and thousands more children smuggled into the U.S. annually for the same purpose, this problem is never far from home” (34).
“In fact, the United States maintains one of the highest consumption rates of child pornography in the world” (95).
“Super Bowl day, with its massive party emphasis, is considered by some experts to be the largest single trafficking day in the year” (206).
Most of us in our daily lives have no reason to even think about child trafficking. It simply isn’t on our radar. One of the stories shared in the book is of multiple children who lost their homes and families in the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. These children were delivered to an orphanage by well-meaning adults who didn’t realize the orphanage was really a front for a sex-trafficking operation. I started reading this book just a few days after another major earthquake in Haiti, which made me start praying that more children are not being enslaved there right now.
Ballard quotes Kevin Bales, a professor of Contemporary Slavery, from his book Ending Slavery:
“[The] abolition of slavery was immensely significant when laws were effectively enforced, but it also blinded people to ongoing slavery. Subsequent generations have been unaware that legal abolition didn’t make slavery go away, that it only masked the problem. Behind closed doors, in remote places and right under our noses, slavery has continued, making people rich, feeding our lifestyles, and burning up lives” (189).
In order to truly put an end to all slavery, we need to see the problem, we need to make it a matter of prayer, and we need to get creative in finding ways to fight it. Ballard’s organization is just one of many organizations that are attempting to do just that. I would encourage others to read this book in order to put a face on the issue and get engaged in this modern civil war.
“Whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea… So it is not the will of My Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish” (Matt. 18:5-6, 14).
“Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these My brothers, you did it to Me” (Matt. 25:40b).
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For those who are interested in Civil War history, the following eBooks are available for free on Gutenberg.org:
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© 2021 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV. Cover art courtesy of Amazon. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.
