City In Focus: Athens
Athens is no stranger to slavery.
Athens, the birthplace of western democracy, was home to such a glaring contradiction of human freedom that many historians wish it were not true. One noted, noble Athenian wrote in 350 BC:
The lower sort of mankind are by nature slaves, and it is better for all inferiors that they should be under the rule of a master. The use made of slaves and of tame animals is not very different; for both by their bodies minister to the needs of life.
This noted Athenian was Aristotle, one of the fathers of western philosophy. A brief scan of the literature of the ancient Greeks reveals that, at least for the castes of the lowest slaves in Greek society, those sold into slavery to pay off a debt, or captured as part of war bounty, the “needs of life” included the sexual whims of male owners. This chilling rationalization of the ancients echoes with deafening similitude to the present day condition of the Balkans, where grinding poverty and political unrest have left thousands of young women and children vulnerable to sex trafficking. Athens, thus, acts not only as a transit city, but also as a destination for victims.
The dilemmas that face modern Greek policy makers underscore one of the scariest elements of sex trafficking that many people would rather not acknowledge: sex slavery is inextricably knit to societies that permit men to purchase sex. While Greece has passed groundbreaking legislation recently to combat sex slavery, legislators have refused to criminalize prostitution, even though prostitution venues are the destination for nearly every woman who is sold into sex slavery. Since nearly half of married men in Greece pay for sex at least twice a month in legal brothels, prosecuting sex buyers might reduce human trafficking, but hundreds of thousands families would be ripped apart in the process. This domestic social collateral is too high a price to pay, particularly since trafficking victims come from other countries.
Athens gives a window into the heart of many “sophisticated” nations by demonstrating the limits of secular sense of freedom and morality. On the streets of many cities in Greece, some trafficked children are forced to beg, while others are forced into sex slavery. Both are crimes “hidden in plain sight,” but efforts to bring them into the light have very different results. As one author points out,
Unlike trafficking for sexual exploitation, awareness campaigns related to trafficking for forced begging can have a measurable effect, as the decision to offer a donation to a beggar can be influenced by awareness of that child’s enslavement, whereas awareness of the enslavement of a prostitute has little effect on the decision of a man who is already inclined to purchase a woman or child for sex. Put another way, a donation to a beggar is an act of moral kindness that can be influenced by a moral appeal. The purchase of sex is an act of self-indulgence or moral turpitude that a moral appeal is unlikely to influence.
This single contrast underscores the poignant reality, present in every story of a woman or child trafficked for sex, that cannot be avoided: sex trafficking would not exist in a world where men were not willing to purchase sex. Athens, the cradle of democratic freedoms, still suffers the existence of slaves today, a paradox that can only be unraveled by the understanding that when a society protects the freedom of some to express their basest desires at the expense of others, that is a society of slaves.
Prayer Points:
Pray that revival would come to Athens causing sex buyers to renounce prostitution, and the demand-side economics to drastically decline.
Pray that real Truth and real Justice and real Freedom would go forth.
Ask God to demonstrate his zeal for the weak ones, exploited women and children, in the eyes of the nations.
