Trafficking Site

I don't usually do this but if you are here today, take a moment to go to my other blog, Fight 4 Freedom and read today's update on trafficking. It has rocked me to my core - I grew up in New Jersey. I know the places this man forced his captives to work. I have friends in New Jersey with young daughters and to think how easily they could be swept up into something like this. The same thoughts cross my mind every time I look at my nieces.

It reminds me why I do what I do, why I am trying to learn everything I can, trying to work in any way possible to end this evil. We cannot rest, we cannot stop drawing attention to the horror of human trafficking until men like Allen Brown have no opportunity to do what they do. They feed off of fear and violence and use women and children to feed their greed.

They need to be stopped. I hope you can take a few minutes to read the story, click the link and read the Attorney General's indictment. Sit and meditate on the fact that this is happening here. In the United States and not only in New Jersey. Think of your daughter, her friends or the daughters of your friends. The smartest, savviest of women and children are still kidnapped, drugged, taken into this world in some of the most incredible ways I've ever heard. Just when you think you have figured out a way to keep something from happening - they come up with a new way to get around your safeguards.

We can't rest until the price traffickers pay is so high, the price their clients (johns) pay is too high (we need to start shaming them in any and every way possible) and the people they traffic have a safe, secure place to go for healing. We simply can't rest.

It starts with how we speak. Enough saying something is "pimped out." Enough saying a woman is a prostitute. Pimping is not glamourous and a woman (or child) is prostituted. Pimps get their money by forcing others to work for them in degrading and dangerous ways. They force their victims through violence and drug addictions - often addictions they perpetuated so they could control their women. As for those who are prostituted - find me one who aspires to walk those streets. They don't want to be out there - they feel they don't have a choice. As someone who looked that choice in the face, I can imagine getting to that point. Every day I thank God I had other options (and a HUGE dose of fear to actually step into that world) but every day there are women and children who don't feel they have those options or are forced into it.

Ever day.