Sex Trafficking and Sex Education

30-year old Bulgarian-born photographer Mimi Chakarova risks her own safety to document sex trafficking and other human rights violations.

Her experiences are discussed in Chronicling Conflict, published on-line today by Alternet.

Sex trafficking is a multi-billion dollar illegal activity that equals the drug trade.

As with drugs, the U.S. is a major trafficking destination. There is an internal trafficking circuit that stretches from Honolulu and the West Coast into Canada and the Eastern seaboard.

According to the Report on Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the United States, 200,000 to 300,000 children are victims of commercial sexual exploitation in the United States alone. (See report "Overview of the CSEC in the United States").

It is a misconception, according to Captive Daughters that the women and children who are being exploited go into the sexual slave trade knowing they will be used as sexual aids.

On the contrary, poor women from other countries typically think they are being rescued from poverty by people recruiting them to work in legitimate businesses.

The children, of course, are simply abducted, never to see their families - if they have any in this time of widespread war and chaos - again.

50,000 of these unfortunate victims are trafficked into the U.S. every year. And who uses them?

Men with money. Lots of money.

In other words, it's highly likely that a large percentage of those rich Republicans who support candidates who talk about "family values" are paying to use abducted women and children as sexual entertainment.

Let's face facts.

People who scream about the immorality of people who care about each other having consensual sex are screwed up. They have to be.

Who in their right mind would object to people loving each other and creating stable homes?

Why aren't these Bible thumpers going after the real perverts - those who pay to rape sexually enslaved women and children?

You know the answer because you've read the stories. It's become a cliche how people who thump the Bible and condemn others always seem to have something nasty to hide themselves.

If you missed one such story, for instance, about Dr. W. David Hager, a prominent obstetrician-gynecologist and Bush administration appointee to the Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs in the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), check it out.

And let me share just one instance of this kind of hypocrisy that I've experienced personally.

The first year I went off to college I attended my pastor's alma mater. (Trust me, this wasn't planned.)

It was a small Christian school with a curriculum that seemed like an extension of high school and was, frankly, rather boring.

When Pastor XXX stumbled upon me working in the college bookstore, he asked me how I liked the school.

I was honest, telling him what I've told you.

He turned red and screamed "You probably don't like the school because they won't let you sleep around!"

Between you and me, I was still a virgin at that point. His attack - and his choice of accusation - stunned and hurt me.

It all made sense about a year later when my mother wrote to me that "to everyone's surprise, Pastor XXX has been having a secret affair with one of his parishioners. His wife is divorcing him and he has been fired."

There you go. The kettle projecting upon the pot. When he was screaming at me, all red-faced and holier-than-thou, he was aware - and obviously feeling very guilty - that he was having wild monkey sex with a woman not his wife.

One more point (after I tell you that I switched to a secular university that challenged my mind and had me working my tail off, but never bored me.)

Don't think your kids are safe. Even in this country women and children are abducted and forced into slavery. All those missing children on milk cartons didn't just run away. There are fewer "runaways" or "bad girls/bad boys" than you think. A lot of them have been abducted and forced into prostitution.

Kevin Bales, world authority on slavery and author of Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy documents that 27 million people - that's 27,000,000, nearly the population of Canada - are currently enslaved around the world. Most of them are women and children used as sexual toys/punching bags.

According to Maria Dolan who wrote a review for Amazon.com: "Bales insists that even a small effort from a large number of people could end slavery, and devotes a large chapter to explaining the practical means by which this might be accomplished. 'Are we willing to live in a world with slaves?' he asks. As a sign of his commitment, all his royalties...will go toward the fight against slavery."

Yet is this Republican leadership doing anything meaningful about cracking down on this terrorism of women and children? Are the Bible-thumpers mobilizing their minions to fight slavery and sex trafficking? Are they educating people about it?

Of course not.

On the contrary, in more and more schools these immoral boneheads are preventing teachers from even talking about contraception or STD's. Gonorrhea is making a strong comeback in the high school crowd thanks to them. There's no way teachers are going to be allowed to warn kids about sex trafficking.

So what exactly is the real agenda for keeping kids ignorant of all things sexual?

You gotta wonder.