Pastor frees sex slaves
Pastor Tom Marfo is renowned for his work rescuing women from sexual slavery in the Netherlands, writes Beccy Beard.
Pastor Tom Marfo started opening his home to women held as slaves in the sex industry in the Netherlands in 1993. He was distraught to see women from his birth country of Ghana traded in the Bijmer migrant area of Amsterdam.
Pastor Tom Marfo
"Girls were being brought from afar, predominantly Africa, including a trickle from Liberia," Marfo says. "These young girls were being traded in the open place. You'd see a young guy with about three or four girls following him."
Buyers from Belgium, France, Italy and Spain bargained for the girls, who would be taken to Italy or Spain to work as prostitutes.
"I just wept," says Marfo.
He prayed for a long time, asking God to do something. Then he realised he was being called to take action.
He set up a church in the Netherlands and promised to protect the women he rescued from traffickers.
He and his family were persecuted as a result of their hospitality, but Marfo was unmoved. "I was so incensed. You wouldn't mind putting your life on the line," he says. "I didn't care less how many times they called me to threaten me."
Spotlight
In around 2000 the media spotlight fell on the trade in women in the Netherlands.
International and national news agencies reported his suggestion that the church and law did not help the victims of trafficking because they were not Dutch citizens.
These people are living dead
He challenged the authorities for putting women in jail instead of pursuing their traffickers. And he began to campaign for legislation to protect the victims and put the emphasis on catching their captors.
Traffickers should be made to pay back the exploited, Marfo says. Many, like Jane (see Jane's story aside) have not only been sold but then have to pay for the place they sleep or work. And traffickers are more than able to pay - they build hotels on the profits they make. Meanwhile survivors of trafficking are severely traumatised. "These people are living dead," Marfo says. "After years of exploitation their physical body is gone."
His ministry to trafficked women today runs under the name of the Christian Aid and Resources Foundation. He has opened nine houses in Amsterdam for over 500 women and he leads the House of Fellowship Church.
Often women from Africa have been made to undergo gruesome voodoo rituals that traffickers tell the women will give them power to harm them or their family members at home if they try to escape. So one of the main ministries Marfo offers at his church is deliverance.
Church members provide fellowship.
Often trafficked women meet members from the same village in their country of origin.
Some churchgoers who themselves have been trafficked are able to counsel them. Marfo may be an exceptional character, with a special calling to this area of work but that does not let the rest of us off the hook.
He is convinced that all Christians can lead in combating trafficking - through speaking up for the women and campaigning for national and United Nations legislation to protect the victims.
"Jesus says we are the light of the world," Marfo says. "We can't extinguish the darkness with one candle, but we can light our candle and our neighbour's: If we do something, we can have a brighter environment."