From Unitedmethodistwomen.org:
Intercept the Traffickers: Let’s Huddle!
On Feb. 1, 2015, many Americans will watch Super Bowl XLIX, the largest sporting event in the United States. The Super Bowl will be held at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. Although big sporting and entertainment events are not proven to cause human trafficking, such events intensify the space in which such crimes can occur.
Thousands will travel to the Phoenix area to take part in Super Bowl festivities. Among the travelers will be those arriving in Arizona by force, fraud or coercion — they will not be there of their own free will but as victims of human trafficking.
The Super Bowl ranks second only to Thanksgiving as the day on which Americans consume the most food, and some of those who are trafficked will be serving food in restaurants or at catered parties related to the Super Bowl. Others will clean hotel rooms, wash dishes, tidy nail salons, deliver dry cleaning or wash windows. Some will be trafficked as sex workers for “escort” services or in men-only clubs.
You Can Act to Intercept the Traffickers!
Intercept the Traffickers Photo Campaign
To express our belief that we can help survivors of human trafficking live as whole persons, we invite you to join us by huddling with others to form a virtual circle around Arizona stadium. If you plan to be in Phoenix for the Super Bowl, we will huddle with you in Glendale! However, if you aren’t traveling to Phoenix Stadium this Super Bowl season, you can still be a part of our huddle.
What is a huddle? In sports, the huddle is a way for team members to check in with each other, exchange information, and agree on strategy and actions. The huddle is a place of “intense and purposeful focus.” So let us huddle. Let us get up close, put our heads (and hearts) together, let’s name human trafficking as the crime that it is. Let us commit ourselves to ACTS of prevention and protection, so that those who are victimized can move from trauma to thriving. Let’s huddle to pass laws that prosecute the traffickers, not the victimized. Let’s huddle together to bear witness to the strength of survivors and to partner in their journey to wholeness.
For the sake of justice, let’s huddle to Intercept the Traffickers.
United Methodist Women members are called to listen to the mandate of our faith to help the vulnerable. Between now and Feb. 1, 2015, take a picture of your United Methodist Women’s group holding hands in a circle or huddle and holding a sign that says, “We are United Methodist Women huddling to intercept human trafficking.” The photo of your huddle will be connected to others we receive, and you will be part of our huddle around the stadium. It would take approximately 900 people standing hand-in-hand to surround the University of Phoenix stadium. In your neighborhood, at church, in the grocery store and at work, become a part of our circle of protection and prevention to intercept human trafficking.
The 800,000 members of United Methodist Women can circle the stadium nearly 10,000 times. What a powerful statement of our ongoing work to say we are huddling together to intercept human trafficking, wherever it exists in the world! In your church, the store, at work…Let’s huddle!
- Make a big huddle or a small huddle
- Stand in a huddle
- Sit in a huddle
- Dance in a huddle
- Put children in a huddle
- Teachers hold books in a huddle
- School cheerleaders shake pom-poms in a huddle
- A sports team forms a huddle
- A Sunday school class twirls in a huddle
Everybody can join a United Methodist Women’s huddle to intercept the traffickers!
Share Your Photos!
Send your pictures to your conference communicators to share on conference websites and in newsletters. Post them on Facebook or Twitter and be sure to tag United Methodist Women. Or you can e-mail your digital photos to the United Methodist Women Flickr account, and send your captions to webadmin@unitedmethodistwomen.org. You can also mail your physical photos to:
Intercept the Traffickers Photos
c/o Tara Barnes
United Methodist Women
475 Riverside Drive, room 1504
New York, NY 10115
Stay tuned to the United Methodist Women website for more news. Sharing these photos will be a great way to show how we intercept human trafficking.