How Women are Still Treated Like Property
- pastorrjc
- Jul 4
- 4 min read
When the verdict came down—Sean “Diddy” Combs found not guilty of sex trafficking despite mountains of evidence, including actual video footage of one of the plaintiffs being beaten and dragged back to the hotel room—my heart sank. But I wasn’t shocked.
We’ve seen this before. Over and over. Women’s testimonies disbelieved. Their trauma minimized. Their cries for justice swallowed by the machinery of money, fame, and power. Demonized for their motives or history. Dismissed because maybe other times they had consented.
We’ve seen it in the courts.
We’ve seen it in the churches.
We’ve seen it in scripture.
My latest book, Through Her Eyes: Biblical Women Speak, centers the voices of women in scripture—many of whom endured abuse, exploitation, and systemic injustice. And while the Bible doesn’t use the phrase sex trafficking, once you know what to look for, the signs are everywhere: coercion, captivity, commodification, consent erased by power.
Sex trafficking is defined as the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act.
The Bible is full of stories where women are “given,” “taken,” or “seized”—not as beloved partners, but as property.
Let me introduce you to just a few of them.
Hagar: The Enslaved Surrogate
(Genesis 16, 21)
Hagar, an Egyptian slave girl, is handed over to Abraham to bear a child because Sarah is infertile. She is used for her womb, stripped of autonomy, and eventually cast out with her son. Her “yes” was never asked. Her body was never hers. Hagar’s story is the earliest biblical record of a woman trafficked in the name of “solution.”
And yet, God sees her. Names her. Hears her cries.
Tamar: Incest, Silence, and Shame
(2 Samuel 13)
Tamar is raped by her half-brother, Amnon. Afterward, he discards her like trash. Her father, King David, does nothing. Tamar’s objections to this act are silenced. Her life, like her voice, disappears from the narrative. She becomes a symbol of every woman who dared to speak, only to be ignored.
Her story is especially relevant today—when women come forward, only to be asked what they were wearing, if they stayed, if they “really said no.”
Bathsheba: A Victim of Royal Coercion
(2 Samuel 11)
David sees her bathing. He sends for her. And he sleeps with her. The text does not tell us how she felt, because how could she refuse? Saying “no” to a king wasn’t an option. The power imbalance is glaring. David later murders her husband to cover it up. Bathsheba, the object of someone else’s desire, is trafficked by proximity to power.
Yet so many interpret this story as Bathsheba somehow “seducing” King David. As though she were equally complicit in these vile acts of adultery and murder. Even though Nathan, the prophet, refers to her in his little parable that he holds up to King David as a mirror as “an innocent lamb.”
Esther: The Groomed Beauty Queen
(Book of Esther)
Esther is taken from her home, along with countless other young virgins, to be groomed for the king’s bed. After a year of cosmetic and sexual preparation, she is given one night to “please” the king—and her future hangs in the balance. Esther’s rise to power is often romanticized, but the truth is: her story begins with royal sex trafficking.
We praise Esther’s bravery later, but we rarely grieve the circumstances that robbed her of choice or what put her in that position to begin with.
And of course we can go on and on in terms of abused/violated women…the Levite’s Concubine. Dinah. The war brides of Numbers and Deuteronomy where, after battles, Israelite men were allowed to take young girls as spoils of war. They were stripped from their families, their bodies “cleansed,” and then taken into households as sexual property—sometimes as wives, other times as slaves. These are war crimes by today’s standards. These are institutionalized trafficking practices, justified by patriarchy and conquest.
Why This Matters Now
When powerful men like Diddy walk free, even in the face of clear evidence, the message is painfully clear: a woman’s “no” still means nothing when the man is rich enough, famous enough, or protected enough. This is not just a legal failure. It is a moral and spiritual one.
In Scripture, women’s stories are often reduced to background noise or cautionary tales. But when we read closely, we see a pattern of institutional silence and exploitation.
And yet, Scripture also offers a counter-narrative:
A God who hears the cries of the enslaved.
A Savior who centers the marginalized.
A gospel that says, the last shall be first.
A Spirit who gives voice to the silenced.
The Gospel Is Not Neutral
God is not “neutral” in the face of abuse. God sides with the violated. God brings down kings from their thrones. Jesus listened to women society ignored—bleeding women, foreign women, “unclean” women. He saw them. He dignified them. He healed their bodies and their reputations.
This is the gospel we are called to live.
So when women are trafficked, commodified, and silenced—even in our courts, even in our churches—we must not pretend justice has been served.
We Remember the Women
We remember Hagar.We remember Tamar.
We remember Bathsheba.
We remember Dinah.
We remember the unnamed concubines, the enslaved daughters of war, the silenced victims of empire.
We remember because their stories are not ancient history.
They are headlines. They are courtroom verdicts.They are the unanswered cries echoing into 2025—and beyond.
And we refuse to look away. We refuse to be silent.
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