Rule Number Nine

So what's rule number nine? If you answer "Never go anywhere without a knife.", you are right, and a true NCIS junkie.... but that's not the rule number nine that I was talking about. I'm talking about "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." or paraphrasing "Don't Lie"

One of the biggest difficulty trying to raise awareness on human trafficking is the statistics. The majority of people agree that slavery is bad. Freedom is one of the fundamental principles that most people can agree on... then comes the question of how prevalent is this problem? What are the numbers? What is the average age of the victims?... all actually very hard to answer. It is similar to the question of 'how do you count how many illegal guns are out there'?... you have to rely on statistics, which for normal people like you and I, appears to be mathematical black magic.

Recently, Women's Funding Network was called out for their statistics which they presented to congress in the fall of 2010 by Nick Pinto's 03/23/11 article on CityPage. The claimed stat was something like this...

"An independent tracking study released today by the Women's Funding Network shows that over the past six months, the number of underage girls trafficked online has risen exponentially in three diverse states," Richardson claimed. "Michigan: a 39.2 percent increase; New York: a 20.7 percent increase; and Minnesota: a staggering 64.7 percent increase."

The article then goes on describing how these number was obtained and why it is not worth paying attention.

It is true that the human trafficking statistics are very hard to come by.. For example, just consider that there was no legal definition of the word 'human trafficking' at the federal level until about 10 yrs ago, and that definition varies from state to state today.... simply meaning that a crime that may be considered 'human trafficking' in one state and counted as such, may not be prosecuted nor counted at 'human trafficking' by another state... and that's just one example. If you think about it, you can easily imagine how difficult it is to get these numbers...

However, the difficulty of obtaining the numbers does not excuse anyone from making up numbers and then telling it to the world... and hence, rule number nine - Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Using bad numbers just hurts the cause and will not advance it. I don't expect anybody to know the details of the how the numbers are obtained... you'll go nuts if you start doubting every statistic you see around, even on day to day basis.

It took very long, by my point is this; be prepared to back up what you say, know the source and do not lie. Telling people that you don't know is much better than pulling something from your bee-hind.

We serve, work and aspire to set the victims of modern-day slavery free. For me, who entered this world from experience and not from academics, it is very easy to say that slavery exists and I am here to help one person at a time. If you have problem with the statistics, that's quite ok and I hope you can help get better statistics... but please don't just sit there and do nothing when there are many people at risk, just around the corner... please be part of the solution.