The place was the lawn outside the School of Art, East Carolina
University. The year was 1994. Enrolled
in the graduate MFA program for painting and drawing, I was a single parent of
three all around wonderful daughters and an artist fulfilling her dream. I
was also a wounded soul. In between classes, I had gone outside to read
and eat lunch. I also went to open my heart to God and to sort through the
fears and wonders of it all.
My favorite spiritual reading at the time was WEAVINGS. One article
spoke to me that day on the lawn and continues to speak to me today. The
author, Wendy Wright, seemed to have heard my soul and our experiences are
connected in a mysterious way. Her article was, Hints, Signs and Showings: The
Compassion of God. “To presume to speak of the nature of God, even of a
quality of God’s nature such as compassion, is a bold undertaking. To
presume to know something of ultimate mystery, one must also be aware of all
that one does not know. Yet there are hints. There are signs and showings.”
(6)
Wright goes on to share of the time she ventured into a cloister
of the monastic community of the Poor Claires. I visited the monastery of
the Poor Claires in Assisi, Italy the following summer as a graduate teaching
assistant. Standing before the nuns as they prayed for others was one of
the holy moments in my life. The presence of God was real to me in that
place. To acknowledge this experience, an image of the monastery from a
nearby hill appears in one of my major thesis works. Wright shares of her
moments inside the cloister, “I . . . breathe in the silence, as though it were
the first air I have ever breathed.” (9) My experiences into and with
silence had already taken a strong hold on my soul and the symbols of these
experiences are embedded in my drawings and paintings. Spirals in my work are a
symbolic reference to the presence of God I experience in the silence.
Then Wright writes about something else I had experienced. She asks this question,
“What is the weeping of the world asking of me?”
As I read of her encounters my heart began to beat rapidly. I
was not alone in this question! I wanted to jump up from my position on
the lawn and shout to the heavens.
Wright continues: “For weeks now I have wakened between three and
four in the morning to the sound of weeping. Not to my infant or
pre-school daughter’s cries but to what I can only describe as the weeping of
the world. Sometimes it is distant and eerie, a vaguely troubling presence
that can, with a minimum of effort, be explained away. Other times it is
fully audible, the cacophony of crying separating itself into distant voices,
each one carrying with it a full emotional burden. (10) . . . suddenly it all
became very still and very clear. And I saw him. I saw the face of
the crucified God. And I knew that he was with the weeping. I knew that the weeping was his weeping and that
the weeping ones were him. And that there was no separation between our
suffering and God’s suffering. . . . I knew that I had seen the face of God. .
. . God is with us. God suffers with us. God is with our passion. Our
passion, our suffering, is God’s own.” (11-12)
I too had experienced the sounds of the weeping of the
world. In the midst of my own weeping, I heard the weeping of the world,
the weeping of God. In the silence of creating or just being, I hear the
weeping. The weeping has called me to be an advocate of those who weep – to become
an advocate for the suffering of others. Consequently, I am addressing the
issues of human trafficking and domestic violence with this art exhibition, as
a beginning place to become a voice for the weeping of the world. No longer
will I choose to be blind or silent to injustice!
Cheryl Hinton Hooks, Pulling Threads, Oil on Canvas
“My brothers and sisters, what good is
it if people say they have faith but do nothing to show it? Claiming to have
faith can’t save anyone, can it? Imagine a brother or sister who is naked
and never has enough food to eat. What if one of you said, “Go in peace!
Stay warm! Have a nice meal!”? What good is it if you don’t actually give them
what their body needs? In the same way, faith is
dead when it doesn't result in faithful activity.” James 2: 15-17
_________________
As a part
of the United Methodist Women and a participant in the UMW Reading Program, I read many books on social action, including human trafficking. This led me to research the problem and to respond to the need.
Here is my version of the type of horrific events happening around the whole each and every day.
_________________
A young
girl walks to a public place with a basket of oranges. She has been told by the
person with whom she now lives, to sell these oranges. The distorted face of a
stranger sternly tells her she must earn money. She is to do whatever the buyer
wants. So she walks timidly to an unfamiliar place. All she wants is to go
home.
A stranger
approaches her to buy an orange, and gives her a small coin, takes the orange
and then takes her by the hand. Maybe this won’t be so difficult after all. But
then, she is taken a short distance to a place of infinite and indescribable
horror.
When the
stranger is finished with her, he walks her back to the street. She walks as if
in a nightmare. She whispers for someone to come and help her. That evening,
the nightmare continues. She has been torn and someone begins to sew-up her
private parts. She will be like “new” they say. All she knows is that she is in
unbelievable pain. She has been touched, torn and sewn, where no one should be
allowed to hurt her. Her screams seem silent.
After a
few days, she is told to go to the street and sell oranges. The nightmare
continues. She cries and prays. Does anyone hear her?
_________________
Do
you hear the cries?
What
are the wounded of the world asking of you?
Will
you answer the calling?
Cheryl Hinton Hooks, Orange
Girls, Oil on Canvas
Cheryl
Hinton Hooks, Orange Girl, Oil on Hardboard
What do we know about human trafficking?
According
to the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in
Persons, human trafficking is the recruiting, transporting and harboring of
persons by use of threat, force or deception for the purposes of exploitation.
Traffickers take advantage of vulnerable persons with false promises or
physical abduction, forcing them into contract slavery, forced labor and sexual
trafficking.
According
to the fact sheet published by the Administration for Children and Families
Division of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, sex
trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery in which a commercial sex act is
induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform
such an act is under the age of 18 years. It is estimated that between 600,000
and 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year, 80
percent of them women and girls, mostly for sexual exploitation. Well over one
hundred thousand children are trafficked yearly in America, according the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Human
Trafficking exists almost worldwide, including every state and nearly every city
here in the United States, because the traffickers go where the money can be
found. Sadly, major sports events, such as the Super Bowl, are routinely a
place for human trafficking. Human trafficking can be found in manufacturing,
farming, restaurants, the cleaning industry, the making of chocolate, and all
kind of goods we enjoy daily.
According
to the FBI, the average age range of a child first forced into prostitution is
eleven to fourteen, with some as young as nine years of age. While not all
prostitutes are victims of human trafficking, a survey of nine countries claims
that 89% of the prostitutes were working against their will. All of humanity is
hurt if even one person, female or male, is enslaved!
What can we do?
The first
and most powerful answer is education. Yes, we need to be more educated about
the problem, but by educating children worldwide, we can more effectively
battle human trafficking. Empowering children through education is a wonderful
place to start! We can use our smart phones to fight human trafficking. There
are apps that will take a photo of the bar code on a product and will grade the
product as to whether the company producing the product is working
intentionally to eliminate slavery in their supply chain. Purchasing fair trade
products is one of the best and safest ways to assure that whatever we are
purchasing is not tainted with slavery. The International Fair Trade
Association defines fair trade products as those that were obtained through
fair wages, good working conditions, safety procedures and adequate health
standards for all workers. Volunteering with a non-profit organization
effectively fighting human trafficking is another effective way to help.
Unfortunately, the human trafficking dynamic parallels that
of domestic violence.
According
to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 3 in 10 women and 1 in10 men
in the United States are victims of domestic violence at some point in their
lives. In 2010, intimate partner violence results in an estimated 1,336 deaths
- 82% of these deaths were female and 18% were males.
The
Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence offers these guidelines, on their
web site.
Types of Abuse
Domestic violence can
take different forms, but its purpose is always the same: Abusers want to
control their domestic partners through fear. They do this by abusing them
physically, sexually, psychologically, verbally, and economically.
Physical Abuse: Hitting, Slapping, Kicking, Choking, Pushing, Punching, Beating
Verbal Abuse: Constant criticism, Mocking, Making humiliating remarks,
Yelling, Swearing, Name calling, Interrupting
Sexual Abuse: Forcing sex on an unwilling partner; Demanding sexual acts that
the victim does not want to perform; Degrading
treatment
Isolation: Making it hard for the victim to see friends and
relatives, Monitoring phone calls, Reading mail, Controlling where the victim goes, Taking the
victim’s car keys, Destroying the victim’s passport
Coercion: Making the victim feel guilty, Sulking, Manipulating
children and other family members; Always insisting on being right; Making up impossible
rules and punishing the victim for breaking them
Harassment: Following or stalking, Embarrassing the victim in public,
Constantly checking up on the victim, Refusing to leave when asked
Economic Control: Not paying bills, Refusing to give the victim money, Not
letting the victim work, Interfering with the victim’s job; Prohibiting the victim
from going to school; Not allowing the victim to learn a job skill; Refusing to work and support
the family
Abusing Trust: Lying, Breaking promises, Withholding important
information, Being unfaithful, Being overly jealous, Not sharing domestic responsibilities
Threats and Intimidation: Threatening to harm the victim, the children, family
members and pets, Using physical size to intimidate, Shouting, Keeping weapons and
threatening to use them
Emotional Withholding: Not expressing feelings, Not giving compliments, Not
paying attention, Not respecting the victim’s
feelings, rights and opinions, Not taking the victim’s concerns seriously
Destruction of Property: Destroying furniture, Punching walls, Throwing or breaking
things, Abusing pets
Self-Destructive
Behaviors: Abusing drugs or
alcohol, Threatening self-harm or suicide, Driving recklessly, Deliberately doing things that will cause
trouble
Cheryl Hinton Hooks, Despair,
Oil on Hardboard
Cheryl Hinton Hooks, Fear,
Oil on Hardboard
Cheryl Hinton Hooks, Numb,
Oil on Hardboard
As you
sit in the corner listening,
Reveal
the darkness as opportunity.
Teach my
daughter to see,
To
overcome, even with limited light,
Embracing
the energy of the night,
To face
the dawn with peace and wisdom.
As you
sit in the corner listening,
Who are Victims?
Statistically, Most Victims Are
Women. Men can be victims too.
- 85% of all
domestic violence victims are women who are abused by their husbands or
boyfriends.
- Teenaged,
pregnant and disabled women are especially at risk.
- Even though
most victims are women, men can be victims, too.
Children Can Be Direct Or Indirect
Victims
- They may be
abused themselves.
- They may be
forced to see their parent abused in front of them.
- The abuser
may use threats to harm them as a means of controlling the victim.
- They grow up
seeing abuse as the natural way for domestic partners to relate to each
other.
- They grow up
in an insecure environment filled with tension and violence.
Teenagers Experience Dating
Violence
Teenagers
are just as vulnerable to relationship violence and it is just as dangerous. Teenagers
may not seek help because they distrust adults.
Anyone Can Be A Victim
- Studies have
found no characteristic link between personality type and being a victim.
- Victims
cannot stop the abuse by simply changing how they behave.
- Everyone
deserves to be safe from domestic violence.
Who are Abusers?
Abusers Typically:
- Deny that
the abuse has occurred or make light of a violent episode.
- Blame the
victim, other people or outside events for the violent attack.
Abusers Don’t Act Because They Are
Out of Control
- Abusers
choose to respond to a situation violently. They are making a decision to
behave in a violent manner.
- They know
what they’re doing and what they want from their victims.
- They are not
acting purely out of anger.
- They are not
only reacting to stress.
- They are not
helplessly under the control of drugs and alcohol.
Abuse Is a Learned Behavior
- It is not a
natural reaction to an outside event.
- It is not
normal to behave in a violent manner within a personal relationship.
- It may be
learned from seeing abuse used as a successful tactic of control – often
in the home in which the abuser grew up.
- It is
reinforced when abusers are not arrested or prosecuted or otherwise held
responsible for their acts.
Abusers May Even:
- Express
remorse and beg for forgiveness with seemingly loving gestures.
- Be hard
workers and good providers.
- Be witty,
charming, attractive and intelligent.
- At times, be
loving parents
Sources
Wright, Wendy M. Hints, Signs and Showings: The Compassion of God, WEAVINGS,
November/December 1990: 6-12. Print.
