Children

Brazil’s World Cup Child “Commodities”

The 2010 World Cup in South Africa generated over 3 million visitors from across the globe to join in weeks of festivities. The next World Cup is not until 2014, but with those kinds of numbers, host country Brazil has already begun to prepare.

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One of the largest threats to the impoverished of the country as it relates to the events is a swell in human trafficking. A rise in the number of sex slaves is inevitably tied to these large sporting events, as was evidenced at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada. Where the demand is high, so also will be the supply.

The “supply” in Brazil is already disturbingly high and will only grow. Kathy Redmond with Compassion International describes the current scene as “pure evil.”

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Young Brazilian girls are sold, coerced or abducted into the sex trade, blossoming numbers of victims to as many as 400,000, according to the U.S. State Department.

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An International Mission Board worker told Mission Network News that traffickers “started the trafficking of people in 2004 as soon as they found out the World Cup would be in South Africa” for 2010. […] With just three years to go until the next games, young girls and boys may already be getting trafficked and prepped.

Source: Traffickers likely already preparing for next World Cup

An Open Letter to Talkers and Writers

To quote from a letter to me posted on January 13, 2011 at 06:07 PM EST:

We can teach them the value of tolerance – the practice of assuming the best, rather than the worst, about those around us. We can teach them to give others the benefit of the doubt, particularly those with whom they disagree.

That sounds like charity to me.

Are charity and tolerance synonymous, if not similar?

No. Way.

Nevertheless, I think the above statements present a standard which most folks calling for tolerance….

Oh, never mind. I think that paragraph may have been headed for not giving others the benefit of the doubt nor assuming the best about others.

Besides, it was teetering precariously on the edge of offering itself to political interpretation.

Can’t have that.

PS: I forgot to say: Talkers and writers, beware what you say and write. It creates a handy means by which to measure your life.

Orphan Boys…and I?

No. I’m too old. I’m too poor. I’m too overwhelmed.

But this still tugs:

Most orphans are adopted into a family as infants. But what becomes of the orphans who are not so fortunate to be adopted? What happens to those who begin to fall through the cracks of the system?

It’s no secret that Russian orphans who do not have a forever family almost always struggle in adulthood. According to Buckner International, kids who go through the entire system and leave the orphanage at age 17 often end up involved in drugs, prostitution, and crime right away. Estimates show that almost 10 percent of these orphans commit suicide within the first three years after leaving an orphanage.

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Older orphan boys from Russia are the most desperate for homes right now. For whatever reason, boys are less likely to be adopted in general than girls, and this is especially the case as they get older. But it is no less imperative for these boys to find homes than it is for girls.

Source: Adoption crisis: Russian boys need homes

Slavery USA?

I’ll admit it. That this goes on in the USA boggles my mind.

What do you think of when you hear the phrase “sex trafficking?” Brothels in Cambodia? Abducted women in South Africa? The 2008 film “Taken”? Whatever your thoughts may be, they are likely focused in impoverished countries filled with women who have no other options.

Yet, this heinous crime and organized trade goes daily unnoticed when it occurs in the United States. That is: unnoticed or unrecognized for what it is.

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The United States is no virgin when it comes to the exploitation of its own children. Modern-day abolitionist York Moore with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship says, “We’re all seeing the evolution here in the United States. Ten years ago, when we talked about human trafficking, we were primarily talking about a phenomena that existed outside of the United States. Back in 2001, there was an estimated only 45,000 – 50,000 slaves in the United States.”

As shocking as those numbers were ten years ago, they are not nearly as disturbing as the rate at which the crime has grown. Pat McCalla of a ministry to sexually enslaved minors known as “Streetlight” in Phoenix, Arizona says the problem in the U.S. has grown to “anywhere from 100,000 to 300,000 underage women being trafficked every year.”

Human trafficking is now the second-largest criminal industry in the world after drug trafficking, and it has become the fastest-growing criminal movement. The United States is no exception.

Not only is the degradation climbing higher in sheer numbers, but the ages of victims seem to be getting lower by the year. “We’re definitely seeing an evolution in the United States not only in terms of the raw numbers, but also in terms of the appetite for young flesh,” says Moore. “It’s very disturbing.”

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Whether minors are used by family members, abducted by clever traffickers, taken from their suburban beds on a nightly basis, or blackmailed into a life of unending agony, the problem exists all over. “In the last three years, I’ve visited Boston, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Minneapolis, St. Paul, San Diego, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Denver. Every one of those cities has a problem,” explains McCalla.

Source: The U.S. sex trade flourishes: number of enslaved minors increasing

Above all, love God!