ABSTRACT
In different contexts, people moving across borders can become victims of human trafficking, the third most lucrative illicit business in the world after arms and drugs and one of the most extreme forms of exploitation. This chapter delves into the scourge of human trafficking across international borders and what it means to be vulnerable as Christians in light of it. The chapter first discusses human trafficking’s characteristics as a form of modern-day slavery, its core element, that is, forced labor and common form, that is, sex trafficking. The chapter then proceeds to unpack the faces and dimensions of vulnerability at play, from the trafficked person, the family, advocates and activists against human trafficking, the local as well as global community, and traffickers themselves. This is followed by reflections on how Christian theology provides possibilities for recasting and harnessing vulnerability to articulate transformative ecclesial praxis, particularly through justice tempered by mercy and acts of solidarity that go beyond ethical consumption and vigilante rescue. The chapter argues that it is in the embrace of, and struggle against, the pain and suffering inflicted by human trafficking that we come to know and open ourselves to mercy and, in the process, to naming and practicing ways toward having right relationships.
