The 2010 Winter Olympics, or the 21st Winter Olympics, will be held on February 12–28, 2010, in Vancouver, British Columbia, with some events held in the nearby resort town of Whistler. Many Christian organizations have been planning and organizing ministry efforts to coincide with the Olympic Games.
Several Christian ministries are making a huge push to confront the problem of human trafficking. Expectations are that with the thousands of visitors to Vancouver during the Olympics, the number of prostitutes in the city will double. Many of the prostitutes are little more than sex slaves used as human flesh to enrich the pimps and organized crime behind the scenes.
The efforts to deal with this issue are ecumenical in nature. It includes Canadian Catholic bishops, the Salvation Army and REED (Resist Exploitation, Embrace Dignity), a grassroots Christian organization. These organizations are working on two fronts - the supply and the demand.
The Catholic Bishops produced a presentation targeting teenage girls who are vulnerable to exploitation. The Salvation Army is training workers in how to recognize those involved in human trafficking and who to best help them. They have also produced pamphlets they will hand out discouraging involvement in sexual exploitation.
REED has a campaign called “Buying Sex is not a Sport.” They are using every means possible to promote that message and deal with the demand side of the equation. They realize that the demand drives the supply. So they are using promoting a grassroots effort among churches to be involved in aggressively working against those who are driving the demand.
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