HUMAN TRAFFICKING

 

This is No Game

I was shocked to learn that the Super Bowl is a magnet for sex trade. Apparently it is one of the biggest human trafficking events in the United States. I thought this sort of thing happened in countries where poverty is widespread. While most of America is looking forward to watching to the showdown between the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers, under-age girls are lured into the dangerous world of the multimillion dollar sex trade industry. Fortunately, there will be eyes watching out for any activity.

Up to 300,000 girls between 11 and 17 are lured into the U.S. sex industry annually, according to a 2007 report sponsored by the Department of Justice and written by the nonprofit group Shared Hope International.

Some 90 percent of runaways and children whose parents force them to leave home fall into the trade and are often beaten, drugged, raped or imprisoned to force compliance, said a section of the report which referred to Atlanta (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/super-bowl-magnet-under-age-sex-trade-20110202-113103-052.html). Pimps are on the lookout for young, naïve girls in shopping malls and on the Internet. Once the girls are caught in the trap they can’t break free because of fear, shame and psychological manipulation. There is no turning back for them. They are forced into a harsh and grim life of sex and drugs. Sadly, it is expected that thousands of underage domestic minors will be trafficked at the Super Bowl.

Thankfully, law enforcement agencies and advocacy groups rescued around 50 girls during the previous two Super Bowls. This is no game for many who are taking action to stop this inhumane industy. Airlines are holding training sessions to spot the signs of trafficking; people are signing petitions and a public service announcement was made by Dallas cowboy, Jay Ratliff. A father of two daughters, Ratliff wrote in an email, “You hear of sex trafficking overseas,” he wrote in an email from Hawaii where he is playing in the Pro Bowl. “But you never imagine it is happening in the United States.”

He is recruiting other players to jump on bandwagon to end human trafficking.

 

It’s interesting that he wrote his email from Hawaii. I recently read a press release on Equality Now’s website that Hawaii is a prominent site of trafficking as evidenced by the recent FBI crack down on a dozen farms in Hawaii for what it called “the largest human trafficking case it has prosecuted in the U.S.” According to federal agents, Hawaii has one of the worst rates of child trafficking. Anti-trafficking activists in Hawaii assert that sex trafficking is a growing problem that rarely receives sufficient attention from law enforcement authorities (http://equalitynow.org/english/pressroom/press_releases/hawaii_20110118_en.html).

Game over. It’s time that Hawaii and other states to pass strong anti human trafficking laws and provide services for the victims. They need to crack down on those who traffik the girls and those who pay their services.

 

“Real men don’t buy children. They don’t buy sex.”

 

God created sex to be a beautiful thing between a husband and a wife. It was never meant to be used as money-making racket or for the exploitation of under-aged girls.

 

“Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Corinthians 6:18-20).

 

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Girls, I urge you to be careful when you are on the Internet and alert when you are in the mall or anywhere public. If a stranger approaches you, don’t speak to him or her. Walk away. Run if you have to. Don’t be fooled by anyone offering you a modeling or acting job. Simply walk away. Be watchful and alert. This is no game. There are people out there who will hurt you. Don’t let a friend or boyfriend or anyone you know talk you into running away from home and going to another city or state. Don’t be another victim. This is your life. Don’t give someone else control over it. Be smart.

~ Adele Butler, 2011.

 

A Celebration of Women