This incomprehensible crime is VERY real and we will stop the people who are doing this.  Monday official authorities announced the rescue of 52 abducted children nationwide and the lock down of nearly 700 people involved in the capturing and selling of these children!  This is great news, hopeful for these children and others. This was a nationwide crackdown on child prostitution, an act pushed by the Innocence Lost National Initiative.  This organization was founded in 2003 to address child sex trafficking in the U.S., and has already rescued nearly 900 children, led to the conviction of 510 pimps, madams and their associates, and seized $3.1 million in assets, according to the FBI.  The authorities who participated in this investigation, now called Operation Cross Country, included FBI Officials, Police Agencies throughout the country, representatives of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and they said the arrests were the results of investigations in 36 cities!  Awesome, this is so great that children are such a priority.  Remember, the people who are doing this were kids once too, so we need to raise kids so that they do not follow these, and other terrible walks of life.

The arrests are “extraordinary, almost historic,” said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, in an interview. “It’s an incredible model. I think it’s working. We’re having an enormous impact on this business.”

“It is repugnant that children in these times could be subjected to the great pain, suffering, and indignity of being forced into sexual slavery for someone else’s profit,” Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer said in a statement. “But Cross Country IV has shown us that the scourge of child prostitution still exists on the streets of our cities.”

FBI has been working in sync with this organization hard core to track down these traffickers and to locate the kids.

Allen claims the internet is their “greatest tool,” allowing quick communication between the authorities, but then on the flipside it is just as effective for the sex traffickers.  they are able to sip a coffee in the Starbucks corner table while communicating about their next sale and profits.  He also says that most of the children rescued have been girls, usually around 12 years of age.  Sadly, he estimates that there are roughly 100,000 children left in the hands of these monsters, who are pushing their ‘business’ due to the down economy.

Again, this may be hard to read but we need to know how serious that world is out there against our kids.  According to a study done by the Klaas Kids Foundation(nonprofit established to help find and rescue missing children), within 48 hours, 1/3 of kids who runaway from home are lured into prostitution or pornography.  The Klaas Kids Foundation also estimates that between 1.6 million and 2.8 million kids run away every year..

Alright, so let’s step it up!  We see that there IS hope, and that kids DO NOT have to suffer prostitution and pornography!  We are here to help.

References

1. bostonherald.com

2. Picture