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How are poverty and prostitution often interlinked?
Students will:
Please note: this lesson includes two downloadable clips from the film Africa United (© Pathé Productions Limited, British Broadcasting Corporation, UK Film Council, Africa United Limited, Dudu Productions Limited and Manbury Trading (Proprietary) Limited 2010. Certificate to be confirmed. In UK cinemas from 22nd October 2010). These clips are only available during the film's promotional window, which is likely to close in early 2011. When this closes we will have to remove the clips and the lesson from this website. We will republish the lesson with details of how to find the clips on the DVD once the DVD is released.
STARTER: 1. Ask the students what it would take for them to lose everything. If they find it hard to imaging any set of circumstances that would take all security and comfort from their lives, ask them the following questions:
How many of those things would have to happen for you to find yourself without a home and without anyone to look after you? Explain that in today's lesson you are going to be watching some clips from the film Africa United, and reflecting on the impact that poverty has on many people in the developing world. MAIN ACTIVITIES: 2. Introduce the first clip from the film Africa United (© Pathé Productions Limited, British Broadcasting Corporation, UK Film Council, Africa United Limited, Dudu Productions Limited and Manbury Trading (Proprietary) Limited 2010. Certificate to be confirmed.) Explain that a group of four children are making their way down the continent of Africa to reach Johannesburg in time to take part in the opening ceremony of the football World Cup Final. They have acquired a hold-all full of money. In this scene they use it to gain a little comfort in a break from their travelling. Ask the students to pay particular attention to the attitudes of the four children to Celeste, the girl who works at the bar. Play Downloadable Clip AU004: Jesus Likes Prostitutes. Click on the flash player to preview the clip or download from www.damaris.org/africaunited
Ask the students how they think Celeste felt about her life and her job. How did she react to Beatrice asking if she was a prostitute? Why do they think that someone like Celeste might be working in a job like hers which she so clearly isn't happy about? 3. Ask the students if they were surprised by Beatrice's statement that 'It's okay - Jesus liked prostitutes.' Do they agree with Beatrice? From their knowledge of the Bible and of the attitudes of Christians today, do they think that it is accurate to say that Jesus liked prostitutes? In pairs or small groups, ask the students to look up the following Bible passages and to summarise what each one says about Jesus' attitude towards prostitutes. You might have to explain that phrases like 'a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town' (Luke 7:37) would have been understood by people at the time Luke's Gospel was written to be a discrete way of referring to a prostitute.
Draw out that in both cases Jesus is absolutely accepting of the person concerned, regardless of the fact that she is looked down on by others for her sexual conduct. However, it is also worth pointing out that there is nothing to suggest that Jesus regards their continuing with prostitution to be in any way a good thing - he tells the woman caught in adultery (another likely euphemism for a prostitute) to 'Go now and leave your life of sin.' (John 8:11) Broaden the discussion by asking who, other than the prostitutes, is involved in the crime of prostitution? Possible answers would include those who pay for the prostitute's services (like 'Mikey' in the clip); those who run businesses that use them (such as the bar owner in the clip); those who traffic girls, selling them into a life of enforced prostitution. How do the students imagine Jesus would have reacted to the people involved in such actions? 4. Introduce a second clip from Africa United. In this clip, Celeste has joined the others and they have all stowed away in the cargo hold of a ship. Ask the students to pay particular attention to Celeste's explanation of how she came to be a prostitute. You might like to point out that although the film doesn't tell us Celeste's age, the script describes her as '15, going on 20'. What we are talking about here is not just enforced prostitution, but enforced child prostitution. Play Downloadable Clip AU007: You Don't Look Like a Sex Worker. Click on the flash player to preview the clip or download it from www.damaris.org/africaunited
5. Explain that a number of well-known charities (including Christian organisations such as The Bible Society, Christian Aid and World Vision, among others) have formed a coalition called Stop the Traffik. This pressure group is calling for an end to people trafficking. Stop the Traffik's website is at www.stopthetraffik.org. You can download a single-page handout called People Shouldn't Be Bought and Sold at www.stopthetraffik.org/downloads/information-v2.pdf. Distribute the handout to the students and ask them to answer the following questions:
Discuss students' findings and reactions.
Damaris Trust also has a short video available for free download, featuring extracts from the two Africa United clips shown in this lesson, with comments from Rachel Davis of CARE Trust concerning the issue of enforced child prostitution. You can preview and download it at www.damaris.org/africaunited.
SUMMARY / ASSESSMENT OF LEARNING 6. Ask the students to imagine that they are part of the publicity team for a Christian organisation working to prevent the trafficking of women and children for prostitution. Ask them to design a publicity campaign to bring the issue of enforced prostitution (child and otherwise) to wider public awareness. The campaign can include posters, pamphlets, television adverts, viral campaigning and any other media that the students think appropriate. It should introduce the problem of enforced prostitution, identify the relationship between prostitution and poverty, reflect Christian perspectives on the subject and suggest practical steps that ordinary members of the public can take to register their opposition to the sex industry and work to bring meaningful change.
Downloadable clip AU004: Jesus likes prostitutes Downloadable clip AU007: You don't look like a sex worker Bibles Stop the Traffik's People Shouldn't Be Bought and Sold handout, from the Stop the Traffik website.
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