|PIC1|As in previous years, members of The Salvation Army are being called to devote the month of September to prayer for peace and for the victims of sex trafficking.

“Conflicts between nations and conflicts within nations still claim lives on a daily basis, destroying stability, disrupting education and creating poverty,” General Shaw Clifton stated in this year’s call to prayer.

Meanwhile, many of the victims of sex trade trafficking “are very young and some are just children - an awful fact which we cannot ignore”, he said.

He added: “We need to raise our voices, raise awareness and raise funds to combat the evil of trafficking. We also need to raise our hands and our hearts to Heaven on behalf of those who work in this difficult field."

Last year, a mathematical study by a team at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle estimated that the death toll from wars around the globe in the second half of the twentieth century would increase by a factor of three.

The US Department of State, meanwhile, estimates that around four to 27 million people across the world today are victims of modern-day slavery, including the roughly one million children exploited by the global commercial sex trade each year and the 800,000 people trafficked across international borders each year.

Though The Salvation Army has increased its capacity to respond to sex trafficking around the world – adding more awareness, training, rescue and rehabilitation programmes each year – Clifton emphasised the need for believers to rally together in prayer.

Specifically, Clifton urged Salvationists to pray for peace on the United Nations International Day of Peace on September 21 and for victims of sex trade trafficking on September 27.