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Sex-trafficking of children is rising in the USA and elsewhere:

The forgotten children: Investigating sex-trafficking in America

February 4, 2015

Sex trafficking is a crime most people associate with foreign women or girls — from Latin America, Asia, or Eastern Europe — but pimps and criminal gangs across America are increasingly targeting runaways from the U.S., typically teenagers from disadvantaged backgrounds, who they force into prostitution. Experts say that the nature of the crime and the organized gang networks involved make it difficult to estimate exactly how many children are victimized, but according to the FBI, up to 300,000 children across America could be at risk. The Bureau classified human trafficking as the third largest and fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world. Anti-sex trafficking groups estimate that, annually, it’s a $10 billion business in America alone. …

“The Internet now has become the number one place for the sale of children for sex,” Staca Shehan, the Director of the Case Analysis Division at the National Center told CBS News.

“Unfortunately this crime and the amount of kids we know to be victimized is increasing,” said Shehan. Last year, 1 in 7 endangered runaways reported to the center were sex-trafficking victims, according to Shehan. In 2012, that number was 1 in 8.

According to their website, the center has received almost 3 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation over the past 17 years. The biggest threat to these runaway children – in hundreds of cities and small towns across America – are gangs.

This is terrible and disturbing news.  I pray that the victims of such trafficking will be able to cope with what they have been through so that they can move forward with their lives.

Child pornography is considered to be a factor that encourages pedophilia. And the internet is a place where this happens, despite its illegality. We have both an article (Pornography: A scourge on society) as well as a YouTube video speaking out against pornography, including child pornography (Pornography: Harmless Fun or a Scourge on Society?).

Of course, sex trafficking of children is not new.  Notice something written against it decades ago:

There is still a flourishing black market for kiddie porn. “Those who know” can readily obtain the literature and movies they desire...

Dr. Peter Decourcy declared in a report to the American Psychological Association: “Children constitute the most oppressed minority group in this country. It is a minority group whose members are regularly humiliated, beaten, mutilated, killed or sexually abused and who have little effective legal recourse or police protection.”  …

The cause of the sexual exploitation of children, then, lies close to home — in fact, in the home.

Recent studies into incest indicate that the magnitude of the problem is far greater than previously imagined. An article in the April issue of Ms. magazine asserted that one girl in every four in the United States experiences some form of sexual abuse before she reaches the age of 18. Three-fourths of the abusers are known by their victims. And about one-third of the incidents of abuse take place in the victim’s home. In at least ten percent of all reported cases, the victim is a boy, but in virtually all cases, boys and girls, the victimizer is male.

Compounding the tragedy of incest is the fact that, unlike an isolated incident of rape, incest is a crime that may continue for years. Its victims are trapped not only by brute force but by loyalties and dependencies.

Even when incest is not a factor, Dr. Avedis Panajian, director of psychological services at MacLaren Hall (the juvenile hall for Los Angeles County), believes that the family of a child who is involved in pornography is usually the cause of the problem. “What is needed is treatment of the child and his family,” he believes.

“Turn the Hearts of Fathers to Their Children”   

In ancient times, the prophet Malachi equated a loving family relationship with human survival itself. “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse [marginal reading: utter destruction]” (Mal. 4:5-6).

Modern civilization is most certainly under a curse today because so many parents have become alienated from their children. The curse is reflected in skyrocketing juvenile crime, the breakdown of school systems, jails filled to overflowing, and obscenities such as child pornography and teenage prostitution.

The time must come, will come, when, in the words of noted psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, “There will exist a well-informed, well-considered and yet fervent public conviction that the most deadly of all possible sins is the mutilation of a child’s spirit; for such mutilation undercuts the life principle of trust, without which every human act, may it feel ever so good, and seem ever so right, is prone to perversion by destructive forms of consciousness.” (Graunke DP. KIDDIE PORN Causes and Cures. Plain Truth, December 1977)

The problem has worsened since, even though there are now laws against child pornography.  More and more children are being sold for purposes of sexual immorality.

Although some do not wish to hear about such matters, the Bible instructs God’s leaders to:

1 “Cry aloud, spare not;
Lift up your voice like a trumpet;
Tell My people their transgression,
And the house of Jacob their sins. (Isaiah 58:1)

The Apostle Paul prophesied that things would get worse in these last days:

1 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, 4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! 6 For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, 7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. (2 Timothy 3:1-7)

28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, 30 backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; 32 who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them. (Romans 1:28-32)

The Bible condemns prostitution and other forms of sexual immorality, but as a society goes further and further away from biblical morality, it should not be surprised to see the rise of horrific crimes such as the sex-trafficking of children.

We all should follow Jesus’ admonition to pray for God’s kingdom to come.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 4th, 2015 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Doctrine, Prophecy.

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• BNP Video: Pornography: Harmless Fun or a Scourge on Society?
• BibleNewsProphecy: Pornography: Harmless fun or a scourge on society?
• California ‘decriminalizes’ child prostitutes
• ‘Human Trafficking Outpaces Drugs, Guns As World’s Fastest Growing Criminal Industry’
• Canadian authorities break up child pornography ring
• UK’s Prime Minister Cameron wants to take steps against online pornography