Let's increase the conversation!

So it was the final day of Social Justice week at school today and we had the privilege of hearing Benjamin Nolot speak. If you have never heard of him then check out Exodus Cry on the internet and watch his film, Nefarious but be prepared to never be able to look at the sex industry the same again. Still encouraging you to watch but just warning you, it is revealing and hard hitting!

Being in the social justice track I got to hear Benjamin a few weeks ago when he skyped in to talk to us and I truly believe that he has uncovered the underlying heart issue that is behind the entire sex industry. It is the way men and women are taught through society and the media to view one another and it is definitely not God's way.

So here I want to start another conversation, I'm not moving away from my stance that I want to see sex tourism abolished but I want to start a conversation about the root causes that enables our society to think it is okay. So here goes!

Someone told me the other day that as they were growing up her mum used to take her out when she went with her friends. This sounds lovely but what her mum and her friends used to do was moan and complain about their husbands. In her words she was told, 'All men are dogs!' and 'Don't get married!' What a way to grow up, believing that all men are dogs and that you are better off not being married.

Sadly, I do not think this is an isolated case and added to anything parents may choose to share with their children is the inundation of identity stereotypes that society throws at you, especially film and music.

I just want to give two examples to get this conversation started and to see what you all think about this out there.

I just want to get us talking and thinking about the issues and not just allowing ignorance or apathy to overtake us.

Please comment below.

Please talk to your colleagues, your friends, your community.

Let's be the generation that stands up and says not on our watch, we will choose to honour and not demonise the opposite sex.

Please choose to honour the women and men in your life for who they really are and not what society says they are.

Let's stand up and be counted and model the transformation we want to see!

So, here's my examples, or Benjamin's to be precise but they are good and I'm sure he will not mind me using them!

The first is Rihanna, now I don't know a lot about Rihanna but it appears like thinks have changed a little since I last watched a music video. Before I wrote this post I thought I would have a look at her music videos and found some on VEVO but it wouldn't let me watch them without signing in. Why? They wanted to know that I was old enough to watch an explicit video! This to me is crazy, why does a music video have to be so explicit that you need to be 18 to watch it?

Sadly, I think we have a culture where sex sells and women have been told that they can take control by controlling their bodies and using them to make money. I think this is the ploy of men who want to see those women do things that they would not do otherwise, but I may be wrong!

I agree with Benjamin who says Hugh Heffner showed the world this okay when he had a harem of women who thought they were liberated as Bunny Girls and people celebrated it. Now that has become topless bars and drive through coffee shops where girls are serving in their underwear. This isn't liberated women choosing a career, this is women getting a job where they can because they have bills to pay, who in their right mind would stand at a cold drive through window in their underwear unless they were desperate for the job?

It breaks my heart that we have sold a lie to men and women then causes them to think that this is okay for them to see and be seen. This is what underlies sex trafficking. This is what underlies it being okay for sex tourism to be a part of our world.

Another example Benjamin gave that truly shocked me was of James Bond. Now, I was not shocked that James Bond was a womaniser, he was that throughout my youth growing up and seeing the movies. No, what shocked me was what had happened in the latest movie, Skyfall, which I have not seen. In this (so I have been reliably informed and so will not be watching it) Bond uses a sex trafficking victim to get to her boss but they both get caught. Bond, instead of rescuing her plays a game with her boss where they try to shoot a glass of good Scotch off her head. Bond misses but the boss just shoots her in the head and all Bond can say is, 'What a waste of good Scotch.'

How can it be okay for a multi million pound film to suggest that a glass of Scotch is worth more than the life of a trafficking victim? It truly does appear like the culture we live in is one where media says that women exist for the sexual pleasure of men, as people to be conquered and not loved. How did we let this happen and what can we do about it?

Lastly, I believe we are all made in the image of God and that is the identity that we have but even without that belief, the first 5 articles of the Declaration of Human Rights are:

Article I All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2 Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3 Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4 No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5 No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

This is enough reason to want to change the current status quo in the world, so my answer is to start the conversation!

My answer is to honour the men and women in my life and to speak true identity into them and not to allow society's thinking to infect mine. It may not be much but I have drawn a line in the sand and I will not stay silent any more!

Please comment below.

Please share this blog.

Please start your own conversations about the things you are passionate about, let us not stay silent anymore.

Thank you for reading, I look forward to reading your comments and seeing how this conversation grows.

Let's start a conversation............

As I begin to write this post we are in the middle of Social Justice week at school and today Papa has met me in a powerful way and broken my heart a little more while at the same time equipping me for the call he has placed on my life. I will tell you a little more of that later but first I need to tell you about the journey Papa has had me on in my heart in relation to justice.

Since the first day I was saved I have always had a heart for justice, a heart to see those who society would rather forget or overlook be raised up and given their God given identity. For 16 years I worked with the homeless, addicts, offenders and women caught in prostitution because I knew there was hope for them, I knew there was a better way. I knew this because I had been caught up in all of that and I had met the better way, I had met Jesus!

All of the jobs I had were part of God's training for me, not only did I get to touch people with his love but I also learnt so much and worked with some amazing people along the way. I loved all my jobs and the people I got to work with, both those I got to serve and those I got to work alongside. I always knew that Papa had more for me, that there would come a day when I would be seeing more of his kingdom come in all that I did but I had no idea what that looked like or how it would come.

Then I lost my job and my husband died and I started on the journey to where I am now as a 2^nd year BSSM student. If you had told me 3 years ago that this is where I would be now I would have laughed very loud and thought you were slightly nuts, even if you were prophetic! I am forever grateful though for the journey Papa has had me on since I have arrived here at BSSM in relation to justice and my heart for it and here's a taster of it.

During first year I did a course called IDignify that was all about supporting girls who had been rescued from trafficking and setting up homes for them. As the course progressed Papa began to challenge my heart about his lost sons and daughters. Now you would think, this being a class about trafficked girls that this is where he would challenge me, but no, he began to challenge me about what was happening to his sons and daughters who were perpetrating the trafficking, that is, the traffickers, pimps and johns. As the weeks went on I was more and more convicted that we needed to reach out to them and show them that they were created for greater things and that there was hope for them.

This led to me being face down on my floor one morning and having a revelation of Jesus hanging on the cross and saying, 'It is finished' and asking me if I thought it was finished for the traffickers too and that what he had done was enough for them? I was undone and began to cry and call out to him for his lost sons and daughters who are buying and selling his children. As I did this, my heart broke, all I could say was, 'Here I am God, send me.' As I gave Papa my yes he told me I would see the end of sex slavery in my lifetime. Wow! What a privilege, to be part of the army that he has raised up and is raising up to see the end of trafficking within my lifetime.

Since this time there have been many more times when Papa has had me on my knees crying out for those that society would rather overlook or ignore and often times, the church would rather ignore too. My heart has been broken in a new way, for the oppressors, for those who commit atrocities towards their fellow human beings. It's not that my heart does not break for their victims but Papa said that he had lots of people willing to go for them, but not so many willing to go for the oppressors and they need setting free too. For this reason I pursue the heart of my Papa to know what steps he wants me to take to see his children come home, to see Jesus receive his full reward and the schemes of the enemy destroyed.

So to 2^nd year at BSSM, I chose to do the Social Justice track because Papa told me that the man who led it would be influential for me. The track was split into three semesters and each one had a theme, with the second one being sex trafficking. At the start of the year we were asked to pick which theme we would like to present on and without hesitation I chose trafficking. Throughout the track we have got to listen to amazing people who are on the ground affecting change all over the world in different ways. It has been encouraging, heartbreaking and challenging! This last Monday my group and I presented our findings and solutions in relation to trafficking and as I researched for my part in this Papa began to stretch me some more.

I, for fairly obvious reasons, wanted to look at demand and to focus on solutions for the perpetrators, that is, all the people who buy other people for sex, from the traffickers from the person on the street buying sex for themselves. As I researched the issue in the UK and possible solutions something struck me that has not really struck me before.

If we are to see the end of sex trafficking then we need to get societies views on sex tourism changed.

How can it be okay for western culture to have numerous tour operators out of creating vacation packages for people to go and have sex with people in much poorer countries?

How can it be okay for 1000s and 1000s of people every year to leave the UK to go and have sex with people (including children) in a poorer nation?

When you consider that a very high proportion of the people in the destination countries are trafficked then it becomes painfully obvious that sex tourism supports and encourages human trafficking.

How can we, as so called civilised people, be willing to turn a blind eye to this? As if, if we don't see it or think about it, it does not exist. I for one am not willing or able to do that anymore and so said to Papa again yesterday, 'Here I am, send me, just show me what I need to do.'

This is where I was when I went to school this morning. I had spent some time dreaming with Papa and asking him how do I start making in a difference in relation to sex tourism, having had some ideas I just asked him to show me how. Thankfully, Papa never disappoints!

As I said at the beginning this week at school is Social Justice week and we have had some wonderful speakers who are truly seeing change happen around the world and today was no exception. Today we had Lyle Phillips from Mercy 29, if you have never heard of him then check him out. He has seen over 400 children be freed from slavery in India over the past few years.

As he was talking I was weeping, no surprise for me there, it is almost a daily prayer of mine that Papa would break my heart for what breaks his and what Lyle was sharing most definitely breaks Papa's heart. After Lyle had finished talking he invited us to go forward if Papa was touching us, I was on my knees giving God my yes again and did not take asking twice! I was kneeling with my face on the floor, tears rolling down my face with Papa telling me I was commissioned to fight his fight, to see the end of not only sex slavery but the sex industry and that it started now with my fight against sex tourism. Wow! I was undone! All I could say was 'Yes, yes, yes!' and 'Break my heart more Papa, let me see just like you see, love like you love.'

As worship began in the room I felt a roar rising up inside of me. Now, I am happy to roar when it is a corporate thing but not so much when it is just me! However, I felt this roar and I knew that this roar had to come out and it did, three times. I don't think I have ever roared so loud and to be honest, I did not care if anyone was watching or who could hear me, Papa was releasing the lioness from within me. He was releasing the strength and the courage that he had placed in me to go anywhere, to face anything knowing that I had nothing to be afraid of. I suddenly knew that I could face death and not be afraid, I will gladly give my life to pursue what Papa has placed on my heart, to see his lost sons and daughters come home.

Please hear me right here! I want to live to a ripe old age of at least 100 but nothing can stop me now from pursuing the things that Papa has placed on my heart because I am his lioness, his warrior queen, his favourite daughter and together we will see the end of the sex industry. Hallelujah! This is on my Papa's heart and I just get to partner with him.

So this post was step one that Papa gave me to do, to start a conversation. I want to hear your thoughts and ideas and here's a couple of questions to get you started. Please comment below or email me at michellearthur68@gmail.com

What do you think about sex tourism?

Why is it okay for companies to exist purely to sell sex holidays to countries where a high percentage of the women sold for sex are trafficked?

How do we change things?

I have another couple of steps Papa has given me and the first is to do some research about the issue and then I hope to post again. Please, in the meantime though, let me know your views and let me know what gets you passionate, what do you want to see changed in our society?

Whatever happens, let us not be afraid to start a conversation about............................ (fill in the blank that makes you passionate!)

Thanks for reading.