According to the Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (2012), more than half of 15- to 19-year old girls have experienced physical or sexual violence. In an effort to reduce the large number of children who remain exposed to abuse, exploitation, and violence, International Justice Mission (IJM) will work to set up community level referral mechanisms, legal counselling, and aftercare for child survivors of sexual violence. While child protection continues to be a critical challenge in Uganda, this project will enhance services and build strong violence prevention programmes for child survivors and those most at risk of sexual violence.

In June, Iran was responsible for a ‘brute force’ cyberattack on Parliament lasting over twelve hours. It was initially thought that Russia was behind the attack, but intelligence officials now conclude Iran was responsible. It was Tehran's first significant cyberattack on the UK. Hackers repeatedly probed ‘weak’ passwords of politicians and aides, forcing parliamentary officials to lock MPs out of their own email accounts as they scrambled to minimise the damage. The network affected is used by every MP, including the Prime Minister and her cabinet ministers. Nine thousand email accounts were affected. The revelations come after Britain, Germany, and France tried to keep the nuclear deal with Iran, agreed in 2015, on track after President Trump’s refusal to back it.  Trump stopped short of ripping up the deal, but said that it would be terminated unless measures were taken to ‘toughen it up’. He believes the international community is being ‘naïve’ in its dealings with the regime.

Cassie* is a remarkable young woman from the Philippines. She is bright, charismatic and has an infectious smile. Today, she’s studying hard and is excited about her future but for nearly five years - from the age of 12 - Cassie was a slave.

From outside appearances, Cassie’s trafficker took good care of her. She was enrolled in a good school, she wore new clothes, and had a notebook and backpack for the first time in her life.

But behind closed doors, every day when she came home from school, she was raped and abused for an online audience.

She said: ‘He hurt me every day, I was very scared. I was lonely and far away from my family.’

Cassie’s trafficker successfully hid his crimes from unwanted eyes for many years. During the time Cassie was held by her captor, he preyed on the children of family friends, and his nauseating reach eventually extended to a 5-year-old boy and a girl less than a year old.

One Friday night, Cassie came home from school, knowing that the weekend ahead of her held untold terror. That night, Cassie woke up to loud noises. Police were there to rescue her from the home where she had suffered for nearly five years.

“I was very scared. I was crying,” Cassie recalls. An International Justice Mission social worker was there that night, and she told Cassie that she and the other children were not in trouble. They were being rescued. They were finally safe.

45 million people live in slavery today. One in four are children like Cassie. Modern slavery takes many forms - from forced labour in brick kilns to sex slavery in brothels. Cassie was a victim of a new and disturbing form of slavery called cybersex trafficking.

International Justice Mission UK’s Ruth Cooke explains:

‘Cybersex trafficking is a new and horrific form of abuse where paedophiles can go online anywhere in the world and direct the live sexual abuse of children over a webcam. Many of these boys and girls are under ten years old. It is a growing problem for many reasons - such as easy access to the internet, the equipment needed (just a webcam or mobile phone) and - in the Philippines particularly - the widespread use of English that means western customers can be easily understood.’

The problems of cybersex trafficking and slavery are growing. The good news is that organisations like International Justice Mission – the world’s largest anti-slavery charity - are ramping up their response to it.
Ruth Cooke said:
‘There is hope. IJM has rescued thousands from slavery and has helped transform justice and law enforcement systems to stop the problem at the root. We know that with enough funds, prayer and support it is possible to end slavery in our generation.’

Our heavenly Father is not overwhelmed by injustice. Psalm 10 promises us that He hears the desires of the afflicted, He listens to their cry and He takes action defending the fatherless and the oppressed. He is the source of all justice.

The end of slavery starts with us, with our churches. Join IJM by giving, praying or supporting the fight until all children like Cassie are free: www.ijmuk.org

*A pseudonym

One of the joys of working at WPC is to hear wonderful testimonies from across the world. We have so many examples of God on the move. Nowhere more so than in the remarkable work God is doing enabling unity across our cities. I have shown some testimonies below. Jesus prayed for the church – “That they might come into complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you loved me.” John 17:22 As one person put it – “We have invested too much time in building our church, instead of God’s Kingdom.”

Movement Day in Methodist Central Hall, London in early October brought 1000 people together from across England, and many other nations. There were four key elements:

Prophetic teaching – Roger Sutton opened the event. He said God’s plan for transformation starts with personal transformation – changing our attitudes and deepening our commitment to each other, it creates a transformed church and leads to a transformed city. God so loved the world that He sent His son, and declares His ownership in every place where we plant our feet. World Vision shared how Jesus wept over Jerusalem, and continues to weep over cities today. God told people to pray for Babylon even though it was their oppressor. There is a prophetic grieving over the poor. The speaker said “Unless we grieve we just do projects.” He challenged church to take the presence of God to the poor so they know they are not abandoned.

Powerful prayer – there was a strong prayer foundation to the conference; Roger’s final comment when he closed the event was to thank the intercessors and prayer people. The prayer culminated in 1000 people including most of the main denominational leaders praying together in Parliament Square. A number of people had had prophetic visions of this event and there was a strong sense of excitement and awe as we praised and declared together. I had the privilege of praying with the leaders before and I would like to honour their humility and unity. It was particularly important to have Cardinal Nichols with us, again a lovely humble man who joined us to proclaim and praise Jesus. We prayed for three key things – unity in the church, for the church to bless the nation and for the United Kingdom to rediscover its call to take the gospel to the nations. Is it a tipping point in the nation? We shall see, but many believe this was a very significant time.

Extraordinary testimony – we have so many testimonies of God moving powerfully and graciously in cities. Here are some examples:

Toowoomba – Australia - city of 120,000 has seen churches work together to change the spiritual atmosphere. They have done a remarkable work with women, ministering to the hurts men have inflicted on them and releasing them into who Jesus wants them to be. To date 30,000 women have been heavily impacted by this. This led to a concern about domestic violence and the church challenged the city to look at porn. 1 in 3 girls in their city had been sexually abused. 81% of porn shows violence to women. Porn leads to marriage and family breakdown and abusive behaviour in men. The city recognised the huge damage porn was doing and the Mayor has declared his commitment to making Toowoomba a porn free city. Many in the audience wept as we heard the stories of church tackling tough subjects to see their city released.

Portland in Oregon - a city where churches and the city council were at odds. It was a liberal administration with an openly gay leader who was very wary of the church. The church wanted to break the antagonism and offered to give 15,000 man days over the year to serve the city in whatever way Portland wanted. They cleaned the streets, tidied parks and offered to serve a school that was in freefall with appalling results and a fast declining population. The turnaround was so remarkable the churches gained great credibility. Now churches across Portland and linked with every school in the city. The barriers are broken and the city recognises that the church is serving and blessing them.

Bristol -  worked hard to bring church and city leaders together. Prayer lies at the heart of all they do and they have the vision to pray for influence in every aspect of Bristol from its politics to its health, from its media to its schools. The newly elected mayor is a committed Christian who was with us at Movement day and Bristol has seen significant change and church growth.

Pretoria, South Affrica - Doxa Deo church commissions church members to minster in their place of calling whether it be the workplace, health, schools or serving the poor. They say “the churches programme is all about people – mobilising them to take Jesus into the city” They celebrate what God is doing in the hospitals, in the schools, with the homeless, in the police. Their church is a sending place.

A call to pray
Movement Day finished with a challenge from Pastor Agu as the Redeemed Church finished a 75 day commitment to pray for our nation following the “If my people” prayer. He called leaders to put prayer at the centre. He referred to Nehemiah’s call to transform and rebuild his city of Jerusalem. Nehemiah loves his city and he stops and weeps over its state. This leads to prayer and action. He challenged us to pray for breakthrough and to take on humanism, gangs, fundamentalist Islam and other issues in prayer. He said we must wrestle in prayer if we want to fuel revival. We should not let go until we see God move. We are at war for our cities and the weapons of our warfare transform mindsets and strongholds (2 Cor. 10). He said this is a time of freshness in the church as Jesus prepares to come for his bride.

Source: Steve Botham, World Prayer Centre