Speak up for those...

"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those who are perishing. Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice" (Proverbs 31:8-9).

Several months ago Glasnost joined the Stop The Traffik (www.stopthetraffik.org) initiative which is a global coalition against human traficking. The 25th of March was chosen to be the Freedom Day (representing 200 years since the abolition of the trans-atlantic slavery in England) when all the members of this coalition would organize different events where petitions would be signed. It was also a day to raise our voices and remind the people and the authorities that today there are more slaves that in the 450 years of the trans-atlantic slavery and that we need to do something.

For five days we went to the university campus and in the Skopje city square and collected signatures and on the 24th we had the final event also in the city square. We were surprised how enthusiastic the people were and at the end we had more than 2 500 signatures in the petition.
This also helped us make contact with other organizations that work in this area such as the USA embassy, the ministry of interior and others.

During the week of the campaign, every morning with started by praying for the victims and the authorities who are in position to act. Well, a very interesting fact is that since then a chain of actions began by the police and more then 50 girls were discovered and set free. For a week or two almost every day there was a story on the news about that. Someone might say that it's just a coincidence but I'm definetely sure that God hears when we pray and that He reacted on the behalf of the girls who were opressed.

We will continue working in this area and probably next year we'll work on a bigger project in the area of raising awareness about this problem.