The ten American Baptists who tried to take 33 Haitian children across the border to the Dominican Republic were charged Thursday with abduction and criminal association.

Haitian Deputy Prosecutor Jean Ferge Joseph announced the charges and said that the case was being sent to an investigative judge. The charges carry prison terms of up to 15 years. After the announcement, the U.S. missionaries were led back to their prison cells.

 Last Friday, the ten-member team, made up mostly of members from an Idaho Baptist church, was arrested while trying to take a bus full of Haitian children across the border. The leader of the Baptist team, Laura Silsby, 40, said the group was bringing the children to a 45-room hotel in the Dominican Republic, where they would stay until a permanent orphanage could be constructed. more >>

A Baptist church in Idaho whose members were detained in Haiti for attempting to move children to the Dominican Republic said Sunday that its team was “falsely arrested” and it is working to “clear up the misunderstanding.”

A ten-member team from several Baptist churches in the United States was arrested by Haitian officials Saturday after trying to take 33 children across the border to the Dominican Republic. The church members say they are bringing the children to an orphanage where they will be given medical and emotional care.

But authorities are concerned about child trafficking, a serious problem in quake-devastated Port-au-Prince where thousands of children are without parents or guardians. more >>

Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle landed in “hell” this week where he witnessed a teenage boy shot in the head and a girl sold to an older man. He was in the collapsed city of Port-au-Prince where rubble from former buildings and streets piled with corpses give the impression of an aftermath of a war zone.

Driscoll, along with Pastor James MacDonald of Harvest Bible Chapel in the Chicago-area, landed in the capital of Haiti on Monday to assess the situation and needs of Haitian churches and to deliver 1,000 pounds of relief supplies.

On his first day on the ground, Driscoll said he heard a gunshot behind him and when he turn to look he saw a teenage boy immediately killed by a shot to the head. The teenage boy was just a few feet away from a seminary property and next to a makeshift clinic where thousands of people slept outside, Driscoll reported on his Facebook page. more >>

Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops in Vancouver have expressed concerns that human trafficking may cast a shadow over the winter Olympics taking place in the city and Canadian ski resort Whistler next year.

At a recent dialogue held in Vancouver, the bishops described the February 2010 Games as a “celebration of human development through sport” but also expressed their intention to stand together in opposing the “social ill of human trafficking.”

They said in a joint statement: “Our churches rejoice in the unity and respect that the Olympics signifies to the world. more >>

Lutherans from around the world have gathered near Geneva, Switzerland, to draw attention to the plight of refugees, slave laborers and forced sex workers.

"God weeps with those who cry," Dagmar Magold, president of the Federation of Evangelical Lutheran Churches in Switzerland, and the Rev. Marc Blessing of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Geneva, told participants Thursday. "God is at the side of those who are imprisoned, voiceless and terrified with fear."

"Upholding Human Dignity: Confronting Human Trafficking" is the theme of the Lutheran World Federation's Oct. 22-27 Council meeting this week. more >>

Stop the Traffik and the United Nations are looking to mobilize young people in the global campaign to end human trafficking.

The Start Freedom campaign was launched at the U.N. headquarters in New York on Monday to help young people make a change for trafficked peers.

It offers resources, including lesson plans, that teachers and students can use to explore the issues surrounding trafficking and what they can do to help put a stop to it. more >>