The Untold Story of Global Human Trafficking—Forgotten Victims

With much fanfare and publicity, January is declared as Human Trafficking Prevention month, flush with hip hashtag campaigns, slick YouTube videos and modern marketing materials. Missing from all the global human rights seminars, celebrity public service announcements, blue ribbon campaigns and Hollywood events is any mention of the hideous growing global human trafficking and persecution of Christians around the world. Christian victims of human trafficking and violence seldom merit a mention in the hype and hoopla.

Yet the recently released and highly touted annual World Watch List 2018 generated by Open Doors USA powerfully and demonstrably highlights the global persecution of Christians. The World Watch List is an annual report that ranks the top 50 countries where Christians are persecuted for their faith.

The 2018 Open Doors report reveals shocking and disturbing data about the rise in abduction and rape of Christian women around the world. According to the report, 3,066 Christians were killed in 2017; 1,252 were abducted; and 1,020 were raped or sexually harassed. These growing, brutal and verifiable statistics demonstrate the increased threat to Christians around the world. Abduction and rape are the weapons human traffickers deploy against helpless Christian women.

Criminal traffickers target Christian women and girls for the crime of living their Christian religion.

Professing the Christian faith is often a death sentence around the world. Has the world conveniently forgotten the April 2014 crisis where nearly 300 Nigerian Chibok Christian school girls were abducted, raped and killed by the Islamic Boko Haram terrorists? The world stood by helpless while their violent abduction and kidnapping enfolded at the hands of Islamic terrorists.

The #Bringbackourgirls campaign faded into oblivion as the Christian school girls endured unimaginable torture and brutality. They were taken deep into the Sambisa Forest to Boko Haram's stronghold, where these young Christian schoolgirls were offered a choice: join the Islamic militants or become their sex slaves. Since 2011, Boko Haram has killed nearly 54,000 people in its deadly rage. These innocent Christian girls were subjected to forced Islamic conversion, forced marriages, rape, servitude and, for some, death.

Read more about human trafficking on The Christian Post.