posted August 13, 2020 05:46 PM            

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I have seen a major influx of sharing about child sex trafficking.
I have been largely quiet on this issue lately & many have reached out to me.
I have a few thoughts-
Sex trafficking isn’t new. It’s only trending.
1-I am thankful for an increase in compassion & care for the vulnerable. I want ALL people on board to help bring about the change we so desperately need.
2-However, I am deeply concerned & I’ve been talking with other advocates about this lately. They are feeling the same concern. Many of us have been speaking out against and fighting sex trafficking for years. It is all of a sudden trending due to a few reasons. Now it’s getting attention…
3- The issue with this…the “awareness” that is being spread and the fear that our children are going to be snatched off of our streets… It’s simply not true & incredibly harmful to the work of awareness that is credible. 
4- I would really plead with all of my wonderful well-meaning friends…to really research sex trafficking and sign up for the long-haul of the fight. Please don’t follow sensationalized organizations/conspiracies that create a issue that has never been the true face of exploitation. I am sad to say that I believe there are some political motives in this sudden influx of awareness.
5- Be careful with hashtags. I have recently seen one trending that I have never seen in all of my years of advocacy...I’ve been doing some digging and that hashtag doesn’t link to anything that is truly helping the vulnerable. It’s actually being linked to a conspiracy theory. Please please give attention to credible source & information so we don’t “reinvent” the image of trafficking & need to spend years reframing it yet again.
6- Sex trafficking doesn’t look like children being snatched off the streets. Sex trafficking looks like children and women…& sometimes boys and men…being lured & groomed usually by someone they know and exploited for commercial sex. It doesn’t look like IKEA stalkers, Target parking lot creeps, zip ties on side mirrors, conspiracy & wayfair cabinets. I am not saying that it never does…because evil is evil and can take many forms…but I have never heard of a story where this is the case. Nor in all of my years of research have I ever heard this to be the case.
7- It shouldn’t take trending hashtags and sensationalism for us to get on board with things like this. I understand that we all have a moment where we are awakened to true suffering…& I am deeply thankful for those moments…so if you have recently had a moment like this…please follow organizations who have been leading the way for decades and decades. Please follow sources that will give you credible information. Please continue to educate yourselves and share with others. Please be informed on trauma and the ways we are communicating certain words here. It matters so much.
Follow-
✨Polaris
✨National Center on Sexual Exploitation
✨National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
✨Brandon & Shayla Cox A/G Missionaries with OASIS
✨Exodus Cry
✨Fight the New Drug
✨NightLight International
✨Project Rescue
✨International Justice Mission
If we want to fight sex trafficking we need to...
✨ Invest in safe houses & restoration centers. My friend runs one & I am so happy to connect you.
✨Reach out to local women working in the commercial sex industry.
✨Value family & invest in young boys & girls about their worth & create safe places.
✨Talk with children about their own safety & boundaries with others.
✨Diligently manage children/teen social media usage.
✨Invest time & resource into the foster care/adoption system.
✨ Understand the very real connection between pornography and sex trafficking. STOP the demand.
✨ Help take care of the most vulnerable around us…help safeguard them from being vulnerable to trafficking.
✨Set up your churches, daycares, schools and organizations to safeguard from abuse.
✨ Create an understanding that 70% of female trafficking victims are trafficked into the commercial sex industry…Prostitution, massage parlors, stripping and escorting. Let that information change the way that we understand the issue and look at the commercial sex industry.
✨ Set a standard in our communities that we value people… Not bodies. We don’t use people. We validate people’s experiences. We speak up for justice. We come alongside. We truly love our neighbors.
Books to read-
✨ Scars & Stilletos- Harmony Dust
✨ Girls Like Us- Rachel Lloyd
✨ Paid For- Rachel Moran
Some words to look out for-
❌Prostitute=prostituted person
❌Child Prostitute=trafficking victim
❌Pimp= Trafficker
❌John/Trick=Person buying sex
One final note…we cannot solely focus on children here...the women being trafficked…were once children who were never helped and restored.
There are woman right in your community listed online for sex every day.
There are women right in your community who are being trafficked.
They are children right in your community experiencing sexual abuse and exploitation.
We don’t need to sensationalize the issue. It’s horrific enough.
May we get behind people and organizations who have put their hand to the slow and steady work of restoration.
If we can come together, learn together, empathize and pray together…be willing to refine one another...imagine the dent we can make in this injustice. Let’s do this well. ❌
#endit #stopthedemand #untileveryoneisfree

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posted August 13, 2020 05:50 PM            

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800,000 kids *were* "reported missing"... in 2012.

In 2019 it was 421,394. In 2018 it was 424,066.

So it's about 425,000 who are *reported* missing, not who necessarily "go missing."

Of those, roughly 94% are found within 72 hours. Better than 99% are returned home safely, regardless of when they are located.

As of 2013, the average number of missing children taken by strangers annually was 115.

Last year there were a total of 121 unresolved reports of missing children nationwide. And it's not that those 121 aren't horrible situations that deserve attention...

It's just not 800,000.

This meme, distributed as a gateway drug to the wonderful world of QAnon/Pizzagate/DemSatanists/Trump support, is predicated on a drastic misrepresentation.

In this particular case, it is also being used to weaponize your own empathy by pinning you as a hypocrite because you 'care about one and not the other.'

That's a big part of how propaganda works, and I'm realizing a lot of people don't recognize that...

It's easy to disregard the connection to masks. And to see through the flawed logic of the comparison.

But the basis of the argument - the visual comparison of the football stadium and the number 800,000... With no frame of reference to evaluate that number, and being that it seems to support the point (covid is less dangerous than kidnapping) and not actually *be* the point, it's easy to just assume that part is true.

By giving you a small obvious thing to throw away (mask comparison), it allows you to feel as if you've identified the manipulation, and move on.

But doing so enables you to not question the statistic you've been given.
That's how you get primed with a fake fact, and you begin forming opinions about a subject based on flawed information.
And that's the real point of propaganda in the first place. So when you hear people say that everyone is susceptible to propaganda and disinformation, this is what they mean. And it's 100% true.

They're not saying you're stupid or you can't see through it. It's that it's actually designed for you to think you see through it, while it actually delivers something you forget to question.
Like a magician who lets you think you've figured out one simple trick while he's setting up a much bigger one.

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