At AIM, we talk a lot about the sex trade. With trips regularly going to India, Thailand, and other locations in Southeast Asia, it’s an issue we encounter quite regularly.
So, we try to prepare our participants for the heart-breaking situations they’ll encounter — how to minister to young girls and boys who have been sold into prostitution, how to bring healing to little ones who have been forced to perform unspeakable acts.
Just this last week, our friend
Tom Davis, president of
Children’s HopeChest and author of the book
Priceless, visited a training camp to share some of his personal experiences with the sex trade around the world.
He shared unbelievable accounts of teenage girls in Russia and Moldova who are lured and tricked into becoming prostitutes. He told the story of an eight-story brothel in India where young ladies “service” multiple men every night. And he challenged each person present to consider the reality of a spiritual battle being waged in this world, pleading with us to intercede on behalf of the defenseless.
As a ministry, we believe strongly in the importance of fighting the evil of
human trafficking that currently enslaves over 27 million people.
However, this is not just an overseas issue anymore.
The sex trade isn’t limited to SE Asia, Eastern Europe, or India. It’s happening in our own back yards — right here in North America. Thanks to the folks at
Fuller Youth Institute, we stumbled across this article from Christianity Today entitled “
Sexual Slavery on Main Street“. Here’s an excerpt:
[N]ew research indicates that the
sex-trafficking problem in the United States is more widespread and
more severe than previously thought…
“Most Americans do not realize that child trafficking is
a major problem on Main Street USA,” said Ernie Allen, president of the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, at a February
congressional hearing. “These kids are victims. This is 21st-century
slavery.”
Researchers estimate that between 100,000 and 300,000
American children are trafficked within the U.S. each year. There is
credible evidence, based on arrest statistics and field research, that
sex trafficking is getting worse and that U.S. children under age 18
compose the largest segment of trafficking victims in the U.S.
Read the rest of the CT article here.
The study mentioned above suggests that sex trafficking is not only affecting the U.S., but it is getting worse. We who live in North America and have a heart for injustices happening on the other side of the world need to not turn a deaf ear to what is happening in our own nation.
That’s one reason why we are sending a team of missionaries around the world this January to partner with ministries that are having a long-lasting impact on victims of the sex trade… with one of the stops being right here in the U.S. It’s time that we put an end to the loss of millions of children’s innocence.
Will you stand up for them?
