Who Are the Children Trafficked For Sex?

As the sun sets across the United States tonight, thousands of children are rising to meet the night.

They should be in safe homes, in warm beds, being tucked beneath blankets and told bedtime stories.

Instead they slip into the nocturnal world, dressed for the work of the “track”.

All over the United States, these children are being exploited. In Atlanta, Detroit, New York, Kansas City, New Orleans, Seattle, Anchorage, San Francisco, Fort Lauderdale, Denver — in every major city, in the small towns, at truck stops in every State of the Union, they’re being put to “work.”

People say it’s their fault, but I don’t think so anymore.

People call them “bad kids,” but I don’t think so anymore.

People say they like it, some say they deserve it. I don’t think so.

The Center for Missing and Exploited Children estimates that each year at least 300,000 children are the human porducts meeting the demand of the sex trafficking industry in the U.S. alone. Around the world, more than one million children are subjected to human trafficking for sex or porn. The industry is estimated to bring in $9.5 billion annually.

The statistics are staggering, but it’s the individual stories that are heartbreaking. These are girls as young as 11. Girls who haven’t reached puberty. Children who should be in fifth grade. Many have never attended a school dance. Never learned how to use a locker. Never pondered a class schedule.

Their skin is of every color. Some come from “good homes” and have families searching desperately for them. Others are runaways, or children in foster care, who have already been victimized and traumatized within the walls of their homes — and have no one searching for them.

These children had dreams. Some could sing, others danced and put on plays. Some were great at sports or loved to draw and paint. Some girls were shy, in advanced classes, and liked to read at night.

Now they are called ladies of the night, lot lizards, bitches, whores, sluts, hookers, and hos.

This is America. The land of opportunity. The land of the free, home of the brave. The country of Abraham Lincoln.

Freedom, not slavery, has been abolished for these thousands upon thousands of children…children who are legal citizens of the greatest nation on earth.

They are America’s children. They’re our neighbors. They’re our children’s classmates. They’re in our very homes.

They are our children.

We must save them.

- Linda Smith, Founder of Shared Hope International in her book, Renting Lacy: A Story of America’s Prostituted Children, A Call to Action