— by Rachel Rose Nelson, Executive Director of Freedom Business Alliance

In the 1700s, the slave trade was a widely accepted, legal and transnational business. Famously, Christian leader William Wilberforce decided to fight this evil trade, attacking a systemic issue—its legality. Today, the slave trade and slavery are illegal but still exist, exploiting the labor of over 40 million people worldwide.

Ghanaian diplomat and former Secretary-General of the UN Kofi Annan introduced the issue of human trafficking to the UN General Assembly in 2000 by stating, “I believe the trafficking of persons, particularly women and children, for forced and exploitative labor, especially for sexual exploitation, is one of the most egregious violations of human rights which the United Nations now confronts.”

More than twenty years later, this egregious violation not only still exists but has also increased. The International Labor Organization estimates that at any given time in 2016, an estimated 40.3 million people were trapped in modern slavery, also known as human trafficking, including 24.9 million in forced labour.

Trafficking was first defined by the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime as the recruitment, transfer, or keeping of humans for the purpose of exploitation. According to the US Department of State report “Trafficking in Persons” in 2007, human trafficking is the world’s third largest criminal enterprise after drugs and weapons.

“Current estimates are that human trafficking generates $124.1 billion in profits, with sex slaves being responsible for $62.3 billion, or 50.2 percent of the profits, even though they represent only 5.8 percent of the total slaves in the world.”

A Global Movement of Christians Fighting Human Trafficking

Today, there is currently a global movement among Christians to follow in the footsteps of Wilberforce and fight the terrors of this evil practice. Many organizations, such as International Justice Mission, are bravely securing the physical rescue of those entrapped against their will in a system that tramples the image of God through violent, degrading coercion of their labor.

But just like rendering slavery illegal did not end its practice in the 18th century, today’s freedom fighters have found that physical rescue of victims does not result in lasting freedom either. Over 80% of rescued victims are re-trafficked if there is no safe employment opportunity available to them.

Economic Solutions for Modern Day Slavery

Those working toward the end of human trafficking have, up until very recently, missed a key insight: as an economically driven endeavor, modern slavery must be met with economic solutions. Job creation is a critical part of the complete solution to ending human trafficking, and those called by God to the work of business must rally to play our part.

Human trafficking is an organized, transnational business which “feeds on economically depressed and unstable communities. In such a climate, families can be tricked into selling one or more of their children. Desperation for work and transience create a potent mix that leaves people vulnerable to exploitation, particularly young women.”

Trafficking exposes grave injustice, revealing just how far the human state of affairs is misaligned with the heart of God. The prophet Amos expresses God’s outrage over the trafficking of human beings when he called his people out for “buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals.”

Isaiah also speaks out against corruption among the powerful and the injustices they inflict on the powerless: “

Woe to those who … deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless” (Isaiah 10:1–2 NIV).

In particular, damaging expressions of patriarchy leave women in the Majority World economically vulnerable, living in societies that oftentimes do not view them as wise investments of limited family resources. For instance, “In societies like today’s India, where the dowry is still practiced—obligating a bride’s parents to provide property or money to the bridegroom and his family—a daughter is a financial liability.”

For desperate families, selling daughters becomes a way to address two challenges: reducing the number of mouths to feed and acquiring needed short-term funds through a sale or finder’s fee.

In addition to addressing damaging forms of patriarchy, Christians must work to reorient the forces of globalization, capitalism, and consumerism toward redemptive purposes more aligned with God’s heart for shalom.

The Freedom Business Alliance

Evidence of a new move of the Spirit throughout the global Church working to address damaging effects of these forces is the Freedom Business movement led by faith-driven entrepreneurs around the world creating life-giving jobs for survivors and those at risk of human trafficking. Freedom Business Alliance convened its inaugural forum in Chiang Mai, August 2017, with over 150 in attendance to discuss the opportunities and challenges inherent in building businesses that employ those coming out of trafficking.

The Alliance was established after the Business As Mission Movement convened a diverse working group in 2013, made up of 30 participants from 9 countries, with varying contexts, experiences, strategies, skills, and backgrounds.

“Uniting this group was a deep passion to see freedom brought to the captives through the creative use of business; along with a foundational belief that ultimate freedom and hope is found only in Christ.” The Alliance now serves over 100 businesses operating in more than 28 countries around the world.

Freedom Business works toward the process of reorientation and redemption of economic forces that have given rise to human trafficking—by offering jobs to the most vulnerable, providing the programs and structures that support their personal and professional growth, and increasing awareness among consumers of exploitation in the globalized production of goods.

All this work combines to reconcile globalization and capitalism with a preferential option for the poor and the role of responsible stewardship intended by the Cultural Mandate. Instead of using employees as resources, Freedom Business flips the typical business model upside down in Kingdom fashion and seeks first to be a resource to its employees, hiring primarily women who are often illiterate and have suffered debilitating trauma.

It is a challenging call. This is because Freedom Businesses do not stop at simply providing a safe job, as important as that is for survivors’ freedom. These businesses go further in offering aftercare intended to support their families’ physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual healing, along with skills training to support personal development, financial management, and more.

The Freedom Business Code of Excellence

In 2021, Freedom Business Alliance convened roundtable discussions with over 20 Freedom Business leaders and multiple external stakeholder groups, leading to the creation of the Freedom Business Code of Excellence which established Six Commitments of Freedom Business, along with guidelines for their implementation. These commitments include:

A Mission to End Trafficking
Governance, Transparency, & Accountability
Good Working Conditions
Fair Pay
Healing-Centered Workplace
Concern for External Stakeholders

The leaders of these businesses, most of them female and hailing from developed economies, are entering into a unique solidarity with their sisters around the world, predominantly from developing economies, lifting one another out of bondage to a system that has limited their full participation in the mission of God.

“The owners of these Freedom Businesses often live and work in the same communities as their employees and often blur the lines between business activity, ministry work and transformational community.”

Partnering with the Church

Of note, the Freedom Business Movement has not come about through Church leadership but through a groundswell response among individual Christians to the plight of human trafficking survivors in need of employment. While unmistakably a Christian movement, with approximately 90% of Freedom Businesses led by Christians, the Church remains at a distance, uncertain of how, or even whether to, partner in the reconciling work being done. This is likely due to divided thinking on the topics of business and evangelization known as the Sacred/Secular divide and the Great Reversal. For the Church to truly partner with, let alone commission, the good work being done within Freedom Business, these divides in our theology must be reconciled.

The Sacred/Secular divide is currently a much-discussed topic in the Church. Many are speaking out to correct this system of divisions, distinctions, and hierarchies that have come to define our thinking around the kind of work that is holy and of God versus the kind that is thought of as worldly and not of God. Business, for so long, has fallen into the latter category, viewed with suspicion and seen as simply a necessary evil.

Business as Mission Movement leader Mike Baer declares, “It seems innocuous, but it’s not. The divide is a false dichotomy, a false worldview, an infection in the minds of Jesus’ followers that has done incalculable damage to the cause of the Church.” Indeed, such a divide has caused the Church to miss the magnitude of strength lost when business is not named as a legitimate Kingdom calling, especially as it pertains to the vital role of business in ending human trafficking.

In recent years, this worldview is slowly changing as the Church recognizes the transformative power of business undertaken with a higher purpose than profit. Moving forward, both nonprofit and for-profit strategies are integral to future success in anti-trafficking work.

“To begin combating the monstrosities represented by these numbers, we must recognize that trafficking is an industry and the sex trade is a business. These are economically driven enterprises. We must intentionally and systematically acknowledge the important role of business as a strategy to fight the trade on both a macro and micro level.”

The Gospel Ministry of Justice

Additionally, ripples from the Great Reversal of the early 20th century continue to be felt to this day, manifesting as a false theological contest between a gospel of justice versus one of evangelism. The thinking of many, especially those within evangelical circles, has been shaped by a deep-set suspicion of justice work in the context of bringing the gospel to the world, planted during an era when the “social gospel” became linked to the pursuit of socialism and communism. Prior to this era, however, the Church was unified in its work in the world, preaching salvation through faith in Christ and pursuing justice by extending help to those on the margins of society.

The verbal proclamation of the gospel and a gospel ministry of justice have converged once again in what Gary Haugan, Founder of International Justice Mission, has called the “Justice Generation.”

He predicts this generation will engage as agents of God’s work of justice “in a way that is quite new for the Western church—in relationships of mutual respect, in shared leadership and in common sacrifice with their brothers and sisters in the developing world, where the gravitational center of the Christian faith is increasingly shifting.” This is the generation rising above divided thinking and stepping into the gospel-bringing work of Freedom Business.

Creating a Tipping Point in the Fight Against Human Trafficking.

There are many parts to play in the global Freedom Business Movement. While the intrepid entrepreneurs creating job opportunities for survivors of human trafficking are at the center of the work, many have gathered to support their growth, including Freedom Business Champions who bring their products and services to market, plus business advisors and subject matter experts.

Over the next several years, Freedom Business Alliance will be creating a Regional Development Playbook aimed at taking coordinated action to multiply Freedom Business in trafficking hotspots around the world. Many people and resources will be required to realize the goal of, together, building 100,000 Freedom Business jobs and creating a tipping point in the fight against human trafficking.

Article originally hosted and shared with permission by The Christian Economic Forum, a global network of leaders who join together to collaborate and introduce strategic ideas for the spread of God’s economic principles and the goodness of Jesus Christ. This article was from a collection of White Papers compiled for attendees of CEF’s 2022 Global Event.