The silent epidemic

Its heartbreaking, debilitating, earth-shattering and eye opening..its the lives of so many, yet so few actually see. It’s the life of a child, treated like a slave. It’s the tearfilled existence of one born to be free….it’s human trafficking. Over 200,000 children annually are enslaved in the United States. The trafficking is generating around 31.6 billion dollars while these kids suffer in silence. There is something wrong with this picture!

This is not only a problem in Cambodia, India, or other brothels in far away lands where we never have to be exposed unless we CHOOSE to be…this is happening right in our own backyards, churches, and schools! Just because you live in a nice neighborhood or go to an “amazing Spirit-filled church” means nothing! Sometimes the darkness will lurk in what seems to be the lightest places possible. We have let our guard down and thus, opened the door for darkness to lurk in our lives, communities, and states like never before!

The May study done by “Michigan Women’s Foundation” stated the two main outlets for human trafficking to be developed and continued is the internet and escort services. In MI alone during the month of May 141 girls alone were victims of commercial sex exploitation. It is found that the monthly trafficking of adolescent girls in MI is higher than the annual amount of those 24 and under involved in fatal car accidents and those who committed suicide! (And we still want to say that this kind of stuff doesn’t happen in our nice closed-off mitten known as MI)?!

Even though we have police and tight knit communities people are still missing the rampant reality of human trafficking. It happens at teen sex parties and through the mouths of other trafficked girls themselves. The reality of this should do more than break a person’s heart it should enlist others and give them tools to help us combat the war for young girls’ (and boys) purity, dignity, and destiny.

This is an epidemic situation, yet it is rarely at the forefront of the news broadcasts or television networks. I know it’s a doom and gloom topic, but its reality! It is lurking in the lives of this generation whether we want to talk about it or not; we can choose to see it for what it is and do all we can to prevent and stop it or we can choose to walk through our lives as if what is going on still only exists in far-off lands.

Trafficked girls can’t just carry themselves out of the places they are in. It is an issue of coercion and blackmail, degradation and defeat. They degrade and defeat these girls until any sense of self esteem is thrown away so that they can be built up in the trafficker’s way; with low sense of value and few morals. These girls (and boys) need others breaking the silence for them and fighting when they are at their weakest place!

So many times this becomes the girls’ identity. They seem themselves as the trafficked and abused; and as one who has been there (not to this extreme level, but definantly in a place of brokenness, coercion, and shame), I say: THIS IS NOT THEIR IDENTITY! It is merely a piece of the greater picture; their life! I ask for everyone who is reading this blog to allow a spark of purpose to be birthed in you, if praying is all you can do, than pray! But seek the face of God, ask Him what He wants you to do in the fight against human trafficking! It may be closer to your heart and your life than you know!