Last year, I was outraged to discover that slavery still exists in our time. 27 million slaves. And we’re not just talking about genteel cotton picking "society." Every year, 2-4 million men, women & children are stolen, abused, raped, chained, caged, whipped, and beaten into submission with unconscionable cruelty, all in the name of the mighty dollar. Human Trafficking has surpassed drugs & guns as the most profitable illegal industry in the world, with global annual profits of $32 billion. "Trafficking guns & drugs is profitable, but people are much easier. Just kick 'em hard enough and they'll traffick themselves."
What sickens me most is that 80% of these people are women & children, and 70% of all female victims are forced into prostitution. The loveliest of our daughters are stolen away, or sold by their families for as little as $20, to eke out their few remaining days in forced prostitution, locked in disgusting brothel rooms until the beatings, forced drug addictions, internal injuries and cigarette burns break their beautiful bodies so badly that they are discarded like so much human garbage, while their tormenters just look for the next piece of flesh to abuse. You can buy a sex slave in a source country for as little as $90, or $10,000 for a trafficked, broken-in slave in the first world, but they’ll earn you as much as $250,000 a year.
The average age of a trafficked victim is 14 years old. Approximately 30 million children have lost their childhood through sexual exploitation over the past 30 years.
I have a delightful little daughter, and another on the way, and something fierce rises up in me when I think that any of our beautiful daughters are being stolen away into the torturous hell of sex slavery. To say I'm outraged puts it mildly. Try incensed, livid, or flaming mad. We simply must rid our planet of this disease, and I'm prepared to do whatever it takes to make that happen. Join me, and let your displeasure be known!
Sources: CNN Freedom Project, Stop The Traffik, UN.GIFT, Random Facts.
The campaign of 10,000 push-ups raised awareness about human trafficking, slavery, and forced prostitution, reaching 70,000 people directly and 750,000 in print. Show your support by learning more about the problem, and the many ways we can fight it, while sharing what you learn with your friends. Together, we can crush slavery!
