While channel surfing, I saw a documentary on television about famous red light districts of the world (arguably not my usual television viewing choice).

What struck me were the incredible contrasts and similarities in the world of prostitution. How some women could earn so much money for one evening's work, and yet other women earning so little, for the same or more work. Women from such divergent cultures and backgrounds, yet all longing and working for something -- but not sex. The common entrance fee for each of these women: the price of innocence.

A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to an audio magazine of a conversation of The Salvation Army's national leadership. The topic was human trafficking and it was informative. Every year, 2,500 women are imported like stock into Canada for the express purposes of sexual trafficking. Canada is also the conduit through which an additional 2,200 women are annually taken into the United States.

The media has made much of the question as to Canada's role in security against terrorism; what about the question of Canada's role in security against sexual trafficking? This complex issue is of great concern to our government and other non-governmental agencies such as The Salvation Army.

Although not perfect, a recent decision by our Parliament to raise the age of consent in our country was a step in the right direction. Women and children are not commodities for exploitation. Message to those who buy a girl: you are being used just as much as you are using her.

We have heard much in the news about a certain pig farmer and his connection to dozens of missing women in Vancouver. I remember, while serving in a different B.C. community, I was asked to do a funeral. A nice family in a cozy, small town, not unlike our community, lost their daughter to the east side. Lured by the fast life, she quickly fell into a routine of drugs and prostitution. It killed her, and when she finally got to go home, it was in a small urn for cremated remains.

If only she could have seen, in advance, the heartache in the face of her family and friends on the day of her funeral, perhaps she would never have left home. The price of innocence ' very costly.

Recently I read a very grim poem by Major Chris Watson, principal of The Salvation Army's Shukrani International College in Mbeya, Tanzania. She wrote this after learning of the death from AIDS of one of her diploma-in-secretarial studies students. The article in 'The Officer' magazine of The Salvation Army (May/June 2006) indicates 'the practice of selling oneself for a plastic trinket, a cake or a bag of chips is all too common in the area where the college is situated ' and not just adult women, but children too. It is extremely unusual for a young girl of 10, living in a village, to be a virgin.'

The Price of innocence: a bag of chips.

A bag of chips
Is all she asked
For favours granted
To man with car.

A bag of chips
The price he paid
Legs thrust apart
Delights inside.

A bag of chips
A belly full
An act of life
The price of death.

A bag of chips
A mouth of sores
A loss of flesh
A hopeless gasp.

A bag of chips
That's all it took
Woman in bud
Withered and dead.

O God, how can I help
These women who sell
Their lives, their souls
For a bag of chips?

This world seems so far away from Parksville and Qualicum Beach, but it is here. As a Salvation Army officer and local pastor, there have been occasions when prostitution in our area has been brought to my attention. Human trafficking is a global scourge, and its tentacles reach small towns.

The beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that no matter how much innocence is lost, how much a woman or child has been degraded and devalued, that divine love is ready to restore what sin and sickness has ruined and spoiled.

A just world will be one which preserves the dignity and value of women and children so that they are empowered to avoid the lure of human trafficking and stronger protections are put in place to ensure their safety from its clutches.

What now is the price of innocence? The price is our concern and action.

by Major Daniel Roode
Mount Arrowsmith Community Church
Parksville, British Columbia

This article was published in the Parksville/Qualicum Beach News Friday, July 14, 2006