Posts
The other night, I had a terrible nightmare that was so clear and so real to me that I woke up in a cold sweat. In the dream, my family went on a vacation to Thailand and someone kidnapped my little brother. We were terrified. We stayed there for as long as we could holding out hope that he would come back running to us and saying, "Here I am! I was just hiding." He never came back and the worst case scenario became reality: we might never see him again.After that, I guess a few years later (in my dream) I went back to Thailand and saw my little brother. I was so happy to see him, but he didn't recognize me. A feeling of hopelessness came over me. I couldn't rescue him. It was too dangerous and the life that he once had in his eyes was gone. Just a shell.
It was just a dream, but it was so real to me that there are children that go through this every day in their lives. Some are sold into sexual slavery at very early ages. Some families "pimp" out their children because it's the only source of income. Whatever the reason, the fact still remains that these children will never have their innocence back again. The cold hard reality of life has hit them as early as age 5 instead of age 22 (when most of us graduate from college, when the biggest decision we have to make is what city to live in).
Human trafficking means a number of different things: organ trafficking (people being kidnapped and having their organs extracted and sold), prostitution, etc. For more examples, please go to: http://www.humantrafficking.org/issues/24. The cause that was closest to my heart though is that of children, because they can't help themselves. The very people that they've trusted, adults, have sold their youth for a price. I urge you to take a few minutes to learn about this horrible crime and see what it is that you can do to help this cause. I have personally boycotted travel to any country that has not taken action to crack down on these crimes or create legislation to correct and enforce human trafficking/child sex trade laws.
