ELCA News Blog
May 14, 2007
Café addresses commercial sexual exploitation in May 2007 issue
by Frank Imhoff, ELCA News Service
The award-winning e-zine of Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), Cafe, addresses commercial sexual exploitation in its May 2007 issue. Elizabeth Hunter, associate editor, The Lutheran, wrote the cover article, "Human retail: Commercial exploitation and the everyday." She said she worried that the sometimes-not-so-subtle messages one receives from magazine covers in the grocery store checkout line could easily lead a naieve teenage girl into commercial sexual exploitation. Hunter listed "Seven things you should know about commercial sexual exploitation," including "What it is," "Why it's not a choice" and "It can happen to anyone." She offered four answers to the question: "So what should you do?"
Dr. Mary Streufert, director for justice for women, ELCA Church in Society, wrote "Faith reflections" for the issue, based on "The Levite's Concubine," a story in the Old Testament. "Judges 19 reveals a terrible scene with a horrifying outcome. We discover that the unnamed woman's relationships are defined by betrayal for the good of the other party," Streufert said. "These same factors are at play in modern-day forms of commercial sexual exploitation, in which female sexuality is usually what's sold as 'human retail.' Examples of human retail are both extreme and subtle, but they both deserve our critical eye and our prophetic resistance."
Women of the ELCA adopted a resolution in 2005 to "continue to provide information and promote resources that assist women in combating commercial sexual exploitation, both domestically and globally." It produced an eight-page resource, "A Day Full of Light: Ending Commercial Sexual Exploitation," as an introduction to commercial sexual exploitation or sex trafficking. The organization's Web site draws attention to the ELCA message on "Commercial Sexual Exploitation."
For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org http://www.elca.org/news ELCA News Blog: http://www.elca.org/news/blog