Thursday, April 22, 2010

Unpleasantness

You may notice a new little feature on the left side of the blog - a little widget showing a fundraising tab for a 5K I'm doing the first weekend in May. I'm walking it - not running; but that is a whole 'nother post.

The money raised from the run is going to help combat human trafficking. What is human trafficking exactly? Modern day slavery. I started to do a little research on human trafficking so I could talk a little more intelligently about the subject. The numbers are overwhelming. I quit reading because it only takes a few numbers to shed light on the severity of the problem.


1,000,00 children are sexually exploited every year. One million. Sexually exploited. It makes me physically ill to think about it. Then I think about my own two boys and it is enough to make me vomit. My boys have two loving parents who protect them, who do their best to be vigilant about the company they keep in order to keep them safe. So many children are not only lacking loving parents but they even have parents who sell them, use them, discard them for what? Money?


Some other statistics I read: Between 4 to 27 million people are in slavery. There is a big gap in the numbers but its not exactly something that comes up on a census: Number of household occupants ____, Number of slaves ____.... Even if it was "just" 4 million people, isn't that 4,000,000 too many?


The money raised for the Free Them run will make a real difference for the people who have been rescued. It will help families learn about tactics used to ensnare their children. It will heal hearts, mend precious little souls and save lives. If we can't be there to put an arm around the hurting at least we can fund those who are there with arms outstretched.