Christian bands to fight injustice

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Concert to raise awareness on child sex slavery and trafficking

By Bethany Lozada
Posted on Thursday, November 12th, 2009, 1:50 am

The Arts and Action Tour — featuring two nationally known bands, Ten Shekel Shirt and The Wrecking — will be at the University of Maine to shed light on child sex trafficking and modern-day slavery. The concert will be held at the Collins Center for the Arts, on Nov. 14 at 8 p.m. Admission is free.

Driven by passion and power, these bands are reaching out to eradicate child sex trafficking in countries around the world.

One-thousand people are expected to attend the event, according to Jonathan Zappala, member of The Navigators, an interdenominational Christian organization. The Navigators are sponsoring the concert.

Ten Shekel Shirt is a Christian rock band from New Haven, Conn. The Wrecking is a Christian band from Portland, Maine, and has performed at many campuses throughout the East Coast. The Wrecking will be playing songs from their new album, “The New Abolition.”

With inspirational music and videos, the bands will encourage the audience to become involved, according to lead singer of The Wrecking, Doug Elder.

“We have videos involved, but we are not holding a type of seminar,” Elder said. “[The videos are] mainly to pique people’s interest and to show them how they can be involved.”

Sex trafficking mainly occurs in countries such as Cambodia and regions surrounding Southeast_Asia" but trafficking doesn’t solely happen in third-world countries.

“This is not confined to one area, but it’s happening all over the world,” Elder said.

Both bands are affiliated with the non-profit organization Love146, formerly Justice for Children International.

“Love146 is a company for the prevention of sex trafficking,” Elder said. “They provide aftercare programs for at-risk communities and smaller villages of families that sell their children and also provide aftercare facilities for girls that have escaped the brothel,” Elder said.

Members of the organization posed as buyers to see the young children who are being bought for sex-trafficking.

“One-hundred fourty-six is a number that they put on a girl for purchasing,” said Elder. “She was the only one that they saw through a looking glass that had a fight left in her … all the other children were so traumatized.”

According to Love146, there are an estimated 27 million slaves around the world today.

Lamont Hiebert, singer and songwriter of Ten Shekel Shirt and co-founder of Love146, will be doing a speech and telling his story at the show, according Elder.

Elder said the bands aim to performing at colleges for a specific reason.

“Performing at colleges [lets us give] the next generation of leaders the knowledge of the truth … and hopefully use the influence [to do good],” Elder said.

Funding for the concert is provided by organizations such as Student Government, Student Affairs and The Navigators.

http://mainecampus.com/2009/11/12/christian-bands-to-fight-injustice/