Women’s Independent Press

By Diana Fletcher

How sick and absurd would it be if I called my friends and said, “Hey, I have this 5 year old boy/girl here, and we can do whatever we want with him/her….come on over!”
I cannot even imagine saying those words, thinking those thoughts and living in that space. Yet, that is what is going on with people who fuel the sex trafficking industry. And it is an industry. It is hugely lucrative, highly developed, and very, very sick.
So what can we do? What can we do to combat this horrendous situation?
We can talk about it.
We can stop it by bringing it into the light.
We have to open our eyes. there are more slaves now in the world than at any time in history.
The abuse of children –boys and girls–is horrifying and disgusting, yet very real.
It is sick at any level.
Even if it is not the Pedophile Crowd, you have the people fueling the market for prostitutes who did not choose to be prostitutes.
Young women and men who have been forced into this situation.
This is not a victimless crime.
We grew up with this idea that prostitutes wanted to be prostitutes and really, what was the big deal?
Now we know better and it’s time to pull off the blinders, wake up and protect other human beings!
No one should ever be forced into doing something they don’t want to, especially vulnerable young children and helpless men and women. Ever.
Human Trafficking is such an overwhelmingly horrific issue that it is easy to get discouraged when you are active in the fight.
But I realized today that there is something that is making me feel very hopeful. There are more and more people trying to help.
I go to Twitter and find more and more organizations and people to follow who really want to stop this crime against people. There are individuals and groups speaking out and fundraising to raise money to help rescue people and support survivors.
There are people and groups who are training law enforcement personnel and working to change laws.
All of this makes me happy. If you focus too much on how big of a problem this is, it is easy to feel sad and helpless. But if you focus on the hope that things can change, it’s a whole different feeling.

If you want to help, please inform yourself on the subject and spread the word about slavery.
Here are some places to learn more:
The Polaris Project www.Polarisproject.org
International Justice Mission https://www.ijm.org
The Project to End Human Trafficking www.endhumantrafficking.org
Hotline # 1 888-3737-888