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In Orlando, Florida on Monday a judge ordered a 17-year old Rifqa Bary into emergency custody of the state’s Department of Children and Families. The girl fled her Muslim family in Ohio saying she was afraid her father would hurt or kill her or send her back to their native Sri Lanka because she had converted to Christianity. Yesterday’s Orlando Sentinel reports that the girl sought refuge with Florida pastor Blake Lorenz and his wife Beverly who she met through an online prayer group. According to WBNS-TV News , an attorney representing the girl’s mother said the parents were allowing their daughter to explore her Christianity. The parents say that Rifqa was not afraid of her family until she made contact with Orlando Pastor Blake Lorenz.

Unfortunately, honor killings are not a myth in our country. To my knowledge, Rifqa is not a citizen, but there are some legal loopholes to grant her some sort of asylum.

As an American, I can’t really empathize with religious oppression. Working with and talking to Vietnamese Catholics has given me a little taste of what it is like, but I acknowledge that I have never had the experience of the bible vs. the bullet. I pray that the Holy Spirit continues to guide and protect Rifqa.

Photo: Amina and Sarah Yaser, the two girls murdered in an honor killing in Texas that Rifqa makes reference to in the video.

I’ll be keeping tabs on this story, and if I find a link to a secure source for donations to her legal fund I’ll let you know.

That was my initial reaction to the “motherhood” photoshoot French Vogue did in its current issue which seeks to explore the “wackiness” and “humor” of motherhood…or something like that… 

The explanation for this shoot doesn’t make a teaspoon of sense.

My official response that I originally wrote on Facebook:

I fully respect any woman who doesn’t want to have kids. Kids aren’t accessories to put in the closet, so if you don’t have the desire to put in the hard work it takes to raise a decent human being, then PLEASE refrain from procreating. 

However.

What pissed me off was the sheer disrespect shown by FV and its staff for children and motherhood that resulted in creating this poor excuse for a fashion spread that masks extreme narcissism as some sort of edgy statement. ugh.

Oh and by the way, glorifying child neglect and abuse isn’t entertaining or edgy either.

Being that my university is of the Jesuit variety, there’s a lot of emphasis placed on service to others. Last fall I started helping out with a confirmation class, and a number of my friends also involved in religious education are now applying to a Catholic-based program called PLACE Corps.

PLACE Corps stands for Partners in Los Angeles Catholic Education.

It is based on my campus, but applications are accepted from around the country. The program involves two years of teaching in an LA Catholic school while earning a teaching credential and a debt-free master’s degree. Teachers live in community together for support and spiritual growth. I have one friend that I am praying gets into this program as it has changed a number of people’s lives.

If this sounds like something you may be interested in or know someone else who may want to learn more about this organization, check out the PLACE website here.

In other news, Keke Palmer visited the Scholastic Store in New York two days ago to read to some of her younger fans. Yay for Keke, yay for literacy.

It’s not a secret, but modern slavery is a topic that hardly gets any national attention.

Women and children from Asian, African, and sometimes European countries are brought to the US by wealthy families to serve as housemaids, nannies, and sometimes objects for sex. The Associated Press wrote an in-depth piece about one young Egyptian woman sold by her family to pay off debt:

Shyima was 10 when a wealthy Egyptian couple brought her from a poor village in northern Egypt to work in their California home. She awoke before dawn and often worked past midnight to iron their clothes, mop the marble floors and dust the family’s crystal. She earned $45 a month working up to 20 hours a day. She had no breaks during the day and no days off.

For a year, Shyima, 9, worked in the Cairo apartment owned by Amal Motelib and Nasser Ibrahim. Every month, Shyima’s mother came to pick up her salary.

Tens of thousands of children in Africa, some as young as 3, are recruited every year to work as domestic servants. They are on call 24 hours a day and are often beaten if they make a mistake. Children are in demand because they earn less than adults and are less likely to complain. In just one city — Casablanca — a 2001 survey by the Moroccan government found more than 15,000 girls under 15 working as maids.

The modern slave movement has various tiers to it, one of which being sex trafficking. A few years ago I was fortunate enough to hear the testimony of a young woman who travelled with some of her friends to Cambodia to help young girls who were trapped in forced prostitution. Some of the girls were 9 and 10 years old.

I just watched a documentary on forced prostitution in the US, where pimps will literally kidnap teenage girls to work for them. In many cases, these kidnappings are dismissed as runaways. The film told the story of a father who knew where his daughter was being held, and called the police multiple times over the course of a few hours before he took a tire iron and went into the house himself. The father was charged with breaking and entering! (At that point my blood started to boil, but the narrator quickly explained that the charges were eventually dropped.)

The way I see it, it is poverty combined with the objectification of women that is fueling this crisis. Those are big words with many issues attached to them, but there are things we can do to help. Check out some of these relevant websites:

*NotForSaleCampaign.org
*Barnabas Institute
*StopChildSlavery.com