Believers in Nepal, who are already overwhelmed with disaster relief following the April 25 earthquake that devastated the country, are pleading for Christians to pray to stop child traffickers, who have shown up to take advantage of a desperate, chaotic situation.
Traffickers are drawn to natural disasters because they know children are separated from their parents and wander the streets along with thousands of other people who are suddenly homeless. Those who would normally stop them—law enforcement, military, and child care workers—are otherwise occupied with disaster relief.
Child trafficking has always been a huge problem in Nepal, but “traffickers are becoming even more active and are trafficking people by offering help,” says Bhuvan Devkota, president of New Light Nepal, an anti-trafficking ministry based in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu.
“When a disaster occurs, child traffickers can operate right in broad daylight and most people won’t even know they’re there,” adds Diana Scimone, president of the US-based Born2Fly Project to stop child trafficking, which partners with New Light Nepal to offer child trafficking prevention programs throughout Nepal. “Traffickers even disguise themselves as aid workers and claim they’re ‘rescuing’ children. In the midst of a disaster, who is going to stop them and ask for credentials?”
When the tsunami tore through Asia in December 2004, traffickers were right there within 24 hours picking up children, often under the guise of helping them. The same thing happened when an earthquake ravaged Haiti in January 2010. “Traffickers swooped in to take kids, often in wheelbarrows right in the open,” Scimone says.
Devkota issued a call for Christians to pray to expose what traffickers are doing and to protect innocent children.
Prayer can stop human traffickers in their tracks, says Nicholas Canuso, director of the National Weekend of Prayer to End Slavery and Trafficking. “Law enforcement and abolitionists throughout the globe have witnessed a direct impact on efforts to end human trafficking when strategic prayer is implemented,” he says. “Prayer is a powerful partnership of agreement with God’s heart for justice.”
Canuso, author of Land of the Free, which includes targeted prayers to end human trafficking, offers these four prayer points for believers to focus on for Nepal:
1. Pray for immediate protection over those children who are vulnerable (2 Thess. 3:1-2).
2. Proclaim that the plans of the enemy would become confused and ineffective (Ps. 14:5-6; Ps. 55:9-10).
3. Ask God to give a prophetic and discerning anointing to those who seek to identify traffickers and their victims (Eph. 5:13).
4. Pray that Jesus Christ would break the chains of those who are bound by this spiritual disease (Is. 61).
Born2Fly is raising funds for New Light Nepal’s earthquake relief and child trafficking prevention. Donate at born2fly.org.
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