The Modern Day Slave Trade

By: American Decency Staff

By:  Chris Johnson I have pretty good memories of my childhood. I'd say it was pretty common – grilled cheese, monkey bars, sandboxes, lemonade stands, bike rides – good, happy times. I have a lot of "remember whens" that I can share with family and friends. I can't imagine having all those memories run through a wood chipper and replaced with hellish working conditions, hours spent trying to sell myself on the internet, or walking the street, looking for someone to sell my body to so I can make enough money to avoid getting beaten by my pimp. But today, an estimated 100,000 children in the United States are growing up in those conditions. Their fondest memories of their childhoods will be the clients who raped them but at least did not beat them or any number of other horrors that are not quite as horrible as what they were doing an hour before. I'm talking about modern day slavery – human trafficking. It's not a comfortable subject, and researching it has been the least fun I've had in a long time. The common misconception is that slavery ended after the American Civil War, but, according to the Polaris Project, "there are more slaves [today] than at the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Some are children who are kidnapped overseas and sold to masters who will rape and abuse their young bodies. Or they will be forced to work in "Asian Massage Parlors" where they are the toys of six to ten men every day, seven days a week. Still others are American children who are stolen from their families and made to knock on semi doors at truck stops. Many of these have to make a certain amount of money in order to avoid a beating from their pimp. The average age that these kids are forced into prostitution is 12 – 14, but girls as young as 9 are also forced into this lifestyle. A few minutes just searching "human trafficking" will introduce you to a disgusting, perverted world that most people don't even know exists, yet it is the fastest growing form of organized crime. One personal account, from my home state of Michigan, is that of Theresa Flores who now runs a safe home for young girls who are victims of sexual trafficking. Via MLive.com – "It started with a crush she had on a boy at school in Birmingham. Against her better judgment, she let him give her a ride home from school one day. But he didn’t drive her home. He took her to his house, where he raped her. She found out later his cousins had taken photos of the attack, but the photos looked as if it was consensual sex. Soon Flores was being blackmailed by a group of men. Do what they say, they told her, or they would show the photos to her parents, her priest, the kids at school. Her father was a successful businessman who made it clear appearances mattered. Her mom told her she was to never have sex, or she would be thrown out of the house. Isolated, with no support system because her family moved every two years, she felt alone. People always ask her why she didn’t tell her parents. Why she didn’t just refuse. It’s hard for people to understand the psychological place a trafficked girl is in, Flores says. 'It’s coercion,' she says. The men constantly threatened her family, her brothers, her dog. Someone always was following her. Dead animals showed up in her mailbox. 'They’re always watching you.' One day, the family dog, Bowzer, was missing. Theresa’s phone rang. On the other end of the line she heard her dog bark, then the sound of a gun shot. She never saw her dog again. 'You’re terrified beyond anything you can imagine,' she says. For two years, she was forced into basements, where groups of men waited for her. 'I always had hope,' she says, 'that one day they’d say, "Here are the pictures." You have hope it won’t continue.' Flores escaped the nightmare when her family moved to the East Coast for her dad’s work. 'I thought my scenario was rare,' she says, 'but I get a lot of e-mails from women saying they had similar situations — a boyfriend who pretended he loved them, then tricked them, then blackmailed them. There are a lot of Theresas out there.' Sexual Trafficking of women and girls is the most common form of the modern slave trade, but men and boys are also sold, often to work on farms, in restaurants, or doing other forms of intense physical labor, but sometimes for sex as well. This is one issue that every civilized human being should be able to team together and push back against -whether Republican or Democrat, Conservative or Liberal, Christian or Muslim or Atheist or whatever – the problem is that most people are not  aware that it's even an issue. Visit Polarisproject.com for a lot more information, pass this information along, and pray that God would protect vulnerable children and that we would be able to put a stop to this horror. =============================================== To order Nancy Leigh DeMoss’s booklet “Does God Really Care What I Wearâ€Â http://secure4.afo.net/ada/store2/index.php?route=product/category&path=26 ==================================================== American Decency Association is a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. American Decency Association Bill Johnson, President P.O. Box 202 Fremont, MI 49412 ph: 231-924-4050 www.americandecency.org http://www.twitter.com/billwjohnson

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