This article is dedicated to all "voiceless" children that are forced into degradation and pain by soulless and vile adults. You are not forgotten.
Sexual slavery is the organized coercion of unwilling people into different sexual practices. Sexual slavery may include single-owner sexual slavery, ritual slavery sometimes associated with traditional religious practices, slavery for primarily non-sexual purposes where sex is common, or forced prostitution.
Prostitution of children (or child prostitution) is a form of commercial sexual exploitation of children in which a child performs the services of prostitution, most often for the financial benefit of an adult.
The term is widely used to describe prostitution of prepubescent or pubescent children, however In legal definitions, the term usually refers to prostitution by a minor, or a person under the age of legal consent. The form of child prostitution in which adults travel to foreign countries for the purposes of avoiding local laws is known as child sex tourism.
For the majority of everyday people, thinking about children being sold into sexual slavery and becoming prostitutes isn’t a normal everyday thought. Surreal and dark, the sex slave industry which creates child prostitutes is an industry that is evil and is full of pain. It reeks of despair, hopelessness and pimps, and surprisingly, it is an industry that exists in shadows somewhere closer to where we live and trek than we really care to know.
The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that between 100,000 and 3 million American kids under age 18 are involved in prostitution and they're often targeted by sexual predators.
"There are sexual predators out there specifically looking for vulnerable kids so that they can sell them," says Rachel Lloyd, founder of Girls Educational and Mentoring Services, in New York City, an advocacy group that provides services to sexually exploited girls from age 12 to 21.
Inside the world of global child sex trafficking, each year, by some estimates, millions of girls and boys are bought, sold or kidnapped and then forced to have sex with adults, mostly men.
From the streets of Bangkok, Thailand, to any town / any city U.S.A., children are conceived by loveless parents and sold and exchanged for money and drugs as sexual commodities to a segment of society that is twisted and evil and exists openly but in shadows and secrecy.
Tragically, in addition to children being exchanged for sex by adults, there are millions of children worldwide that elect prostitution as a way to clothe and feed themselves. They are the children of broken dreams, living in a world that is devoid of a parent’s love and protection. We see them but we don’t. They’re the kids who routinely live on the streets. They hang out at train stations and bus terminals.
Although they pretend to be adults, their eyes tell a different story. If you look closely, you’ll see in their eyes a cry to be loved as children. Whether real or imagined, these children / teenagers believe that they have no other recourse but to sell their body as a means of surviving in what they perceive as being a hard, cruel and loveless world.
Some are caught up in the hype of what they believe will be the road that leads them to the “glamorous life”. Nice homes, nice cars, and expensive jewelry. In the vernacular of today’s youth, they’re in search for the “Gucci life”.
The reality is that these children, who have grown up not knowing the meaning of the words “self respect”, grow up the far majority of the time, to become the adults - if they’re not killed on the streets as children– that are lost in life, lost on a dependency to drugs and alcohol. They are the adults who have difficulty in staying in relationships.
Without knowing the meaning of “self respect”, they are the children who grow up as adults who most likely will be physically and mentally abused. Unfortunately, because they have never experienced positive parental mentoring, they too become abusive parents.
In reality, there are children in homes, on the streets and in motel rooms both locally and globally, that are being victimized by predators that have no sense of right or wrong and are soulless. If you know of or are suspicious of children that are being abused please notify the police. It's important for the kids on the street to know that they are not forgotten.
As always Louisianans, the New Orleans Examiner is interested in what you think. Is the crime of children being sold into prostitution more common of a criminal phenomenon then we realize? Inquiring minds want to know. Sound off.
The telephone number to the National Runaway Hotline is:
800-662-4357
Until next time Louisianans, Good Day, God Bless and Good Fishing.
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