Christian Stars Estrellas Cristianas - Estrellas Cristianas Newspaper

HUMAN TRAFFICKING
When we think about slavery
our minds take a retrospective
journey into our school years
during American history. Many minds
start replaying images that resemble an
episode of the miniseries Roots. Perhaps
some of us think about the history of
Spanish slavery and most of us will picture
images of other miniseries, Amistad.
For those of us that are believers and have
studied the Word of God our minds perhaps
would travel to the years of captivity
and slavery of the chosen people of God,
Israel, where 4 million Jews lived under
slavery under the fist of the Egyptians.
Perhaps Roman slavery, Greek slavery,
I could probably write a documentary
on different types of slavery. However,
when it came to human trafficking of children
in the United States and sex slavery
of children in the 21st. century I was
confronted with not knowing very much
about this alarming crime. I felt like if I
was attending my first day in history class
when it came to this subject. I was clueless!
Therefore, I decided to research it
and inform about it. I was also confronted
with the fact that many of us, when we
hear about it, we tend to think that this is
a mafia crime committed by Russians or
people living in eastern European countries
or South American under developed
countries. Maybe people in Asia had to
come up with a different way of making
money to help them survive after communism
ended. Some of us may also think
that this is a way of people that live in
an underdeveloped third world country to
make money or that since Thailand is the
country with the largest prostitution incidence
in the world we immediately place
it in those categories. Our minds don’t
fathom that the United States has its own
home grown children human trafficking
and sex slavery mafias.
I wasn’t able to play an image on my
mind but I was confronted with unspeakable
fear and even anguish to just imagine
what would happen if my 12 year old son
was a victim of a sex slavery/ human trafficking
crime. My eyes welled up by just
thinking… what if he would be abducted?
What would happen to him? Would he be
raped? Would they make him a drug addict
and put him on the street to sell his
body? Where would he sleep? What types
of drugs and sexually transmitted diseas-
es would he be exposed to? What about
him having to endure the removal of one
of his vital organs to be sold? How would
he endure physical, mental and sexual
abuse? Is he hungry out there? Is he sick
and cold? What about school? What about
his dreams? What type of fears he might
be going through? How is he dealing with
the fears that he might be under? The
list of questions is unending! The horror
of experiencing all this as many parents
in the United States are experiencing it. I
am only imagining it! Many families are
living under this horrifying condition as I
write this report. Misinformation about
this topic is the most critical aspect of this
horrible crime. People perish for lack of
knowledge. Therefore, knowledge is key…
Wisdom comes from above when we ask
about it in prayer. Let’s take a moment
and ask for wisdom and understanding
over this matter, lets allow ourselves to
be educated in order to be able to protect
our children shall we?
What Is Human Trafficking? What Is
the Extent of Human Trafficking in the
United States?
Contrary to a common assumption, human
trafficking is not just a problem in
other countries. Cases of human trafficking
have been reported in all 50 states,
Washington D.C., and some U.S. territories.
Victims of human trafficking can be
children or adults, U.S. citizens or foreign
nationals, male or female. According to
U.S. government estimates, thousands of
men, women, and children are trafficked
to the United States for the purposes of
sexual and labor exploitation. An unknown
number of U.S. citizens and legal
residents are trafficked within the country
primarily for sexual servitude and, to
a lesser extent, forced labor.
PG. 3
How Does Human Trafficking Affect
Our Schools?
Trafficking can involve school children
particularly those not living with their
parents—who are vulnerable to coerced
labor exploitation, domestic servitude, or
commercial sexual exploitation (i.e., prostitution).
Sex traffickers target children
because of their vulnerability and gullibility,
as well as the market demand for
young victims. Those who recruit minors
into prostitution violate federal anti-trafficking
laws, even if there is no coercion or
movement across state lines. The children
at risk are not just high school students
studies demonstrate that pimps prey on
victims as young as 12. Traffickers have
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