In Bosnia, Victor Malarek, the Canadian journalist met a 15-year-old girl who had been trafficked to Bosnia. "She was the 21st birthday present for a soldier in a United Nations platoon and was raped in turn by men with American, Canadian, British, Russian and French accents – so many she stopped counting," he writes. Malarek describes the traffickers' recruitment methods. An orphanage in Romania might receive a visit from "social workers" offering "apprentice programmes" for adolescent girls. The girls are taken away and forced into prostitution. Trafficking in human beings is now the third-largest moneymaking venture in the world after illegal weapons and drugs. In fact the United Nations estimates that the trade nets organized crime more than £12 billion a year.
For some western people today everything is up for sale. This includes normal birthday presents like watches and mobile phones. It can also include young girls and boys who have become objects of consumption. Hardened consumerists obey a simple commandment. Love things and use people.
This is the gospel of consumerism. The good news of secularism.
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