GLOBAL IMPACT
The 3rd World Congress Against Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescence was held in Rio De Janeiro Brazil. Thin Blue Line Ministries International was invited as a Non Government Organization.
Below is the text of Ken Hodgesons’ speech to congress on Global Patterns of Trafficking in Children for Sexual Purposes.
Ken Hodgeson, President
Thin Blue Line Ministries International
Panel – Forms of Sexual Exploitations and its New Scenarios.
Regional and global patterns of trafficking in children and adolescents for sexual purposes
GLOBAL PATTERNS OF TRAFFICKING FOR SEXUAL PURPOSES
Primary Reasons Why There is a Global Crisis
1. The opportunity to make millions, even billions in each and every country around the globe
• Supply and Demand, lots of children and lots of people who want those children.
• Money equals a lot of things: Power – Success – Freedom.
• All of these can and are addictive.
2. Because poverty is global and many countries are so impoverished, the people lose hope and therefore feel powerless.
• Poverty puts our children and babies in a position where they are unprotected.
• Many people believe they can’t protect them.
• There is a large section of poverty stricken towns and countries that get so delusional in their thinking that they see their children as a means to make money.
• Because of the poverty, the lack of police presence, and corruption in these poor countries, people can be forced into giving up their babies and children.
• People are easily deceived into a multitude of schemes. This gives the traffickers many different ways to deceive parents or troubled children into believing something that’s really unbelievable and therefore lure them away
• The cloud of poverty and corruption that certain countries and cities live under create the elements for the perfect storm of child trafficking for sexual exploitation.
• There’s no place to put these children. In the wake of the storm, hundreds and thousands of children are devastated, left barely alive. Because of the impoverished countries, there is nowhere to put the children where they will be safe, cared for, receive counseling, and be treated the way you would treat a disaster victim. In many countries these child victims are looked down upon as though for some reason it was their fault, they asked for it. This obviously compounds the complexities of this problem.
3. There is a huge thirst for children for sexual purposes, gratification, and to feed the monster of addiction.
• When children are subjected to trafficking, forced into prostitution, and used for child pornography, their soul is destroyed; which is their mind, will and emotions. When this is wide spread it undermines a whole culture.
• Once children are caught up in the system of trafficking and are rescued, without the right help they will never recover from the inconceivable damages done to their soul.
• This is when they become drug addicts, street kids, and dependent on the state. There will be a certain percentage that will continue to stay victims or become victimizers. I don’t know of any country that is capable of handling the 100’s and 1,000’s of children that are being trafficked, and in that – their souls being destroyed. They become criminals. In certain cultures they bring shame on the family.
• Where there are children there are predators, where there is poverty there are usually lots of children - which sets up this whole cycle (I’m not saying this is the only cycle; it’s just one of the cycles). The beast behind trafficking children and babies for sex and film will adapt any way it has to, in order to feed its addictive and distorted way of thinking and the supreme value that is put on money.
How Does a Whole Country/World Become Part of the Problem?
1. Corruption; the kind of corruption that touches every person in that country.
• Most of the corruption that goes on has little or nothing to do with child trafficking. But child traffickers, from the top to bottom, find out the kind of corruption that people who stand in their way are involved in, and then hold that against them.
• When a person is corrupt for whatever reasons, this forces them to have no voice for fear that speaking out against child trafficking may expose their corruption. So corruption keeps people silent.
• I’m not saying that everybody is part of child trafficking, but I am saying people are in other’s back pockets.
2. Fear
• Fear is one of the most dominating emotions that we have.
• When fear is used in a negative way, people who may be the strongest steadfast people in a country can buckle.
• Traffickers use this fear in many different ways; whether it’s through murdering judges, chiefs of police, torturing, or mangling the bodies of people in government. The kidnapping of your own child can produce enough fear to bring down the strongest man or woman in a heartbeat.
• Fear has tentacles just like corruption. It can reach to the lowest person in a country, up to the top leaders in a country. Nobody is completely immune to being crippled by fear.
3. Poverty
• First and foremost, poverty makes everybody wide open to corruption (then the cycle starts all over again).
• Because of poverty police are not equipped mentally, emotionally, and they do not have the proper equipment.
• There is not enough education starting with police and social workers out in the trenches. They don’t have enough training, or the right equipment. They aren’t taught how to handle victims, predators, the middle man, and above all how to handle the people at the top of this embarrassing and vicious problem of trafficking children for the purpose of sex.
• Poverty like many other things we’ve talked about has tentacles. It reaches out and touches all parts of a person life, like health for example. If I’m not healthy how can I perform, how can I learn etc.
• It’s strange that in some of the most poverty stricken countries, millions and billions of dollars are being made off of our children. There has to be a great demand, and poverty produces the supply.
• The demand; people who are willing to pay thousands of dollars for a child are the same people who are willing to risk their reputation, jail time and even persecution if they are caught. There has to be a way or plan of attack to prevent the demand. If there is no demand, there is no need for supplies. I don’t think you can flip this around because there will always be poverty.
The People Involved in Trafficking
1. Here are some of the main players in trafficking:
Children (supply)
• They lose everything (it would be hard to put into words of all they do lose). Children are tricked, lured, coerced, kidnapped, and forced into this horrible and unforgiving problem. It leaves its mark in every country in the world. By all appearances it looks like the child is the biggest loser in this, but truly the biggest loser in the end is the country that allows this to go on. If you take our children, you our country.
The Buyer (demand)
• Goal is to meet his/her desires at all costs.
The Seller
• Goal is to make money which is his “god”, interestingly enough he is the closest link to the children before they are sent to hell on earth. The seller is a complicated person.
The Trafficker
• The trafficker is there for the money and he also gets the supply.
The Person at the top
• He/she could be wearing a suit and tie, business man, in government, he could be really anybody.
• Is the one making the biggest profits
• Has to protect his supply and the demand, and most importantly the money. So from him develops gangs and organized crime to control all of his investments and to ensure he has a big return.
• He is the least involved with the children
• Most often the top person does this with the least amount of dirt on his hands. But, he still knows his money is dirty. That is a kink for the top guy, but it also helps the abuse of children to continue. There is never a fulfillment for the people at the top, so they continue to chase it.
• He or she is usually untouchable, above the law (now we’re back to corruption).
• They often have information on others and use it as leverage.
• This by no means is a complete study, this takes on many different forms, faces and angles.
Tying up the Loose Ends
Trafficking of children for sexual purposes has created a whole new monster. This monster is not going away without people like you getting together and working to figure out ways through law, through teaching, through education, and through law enforcement. Our greatest weapon is exposure. Exposing the people behind the horror. Nobody wants to be seen in that picture. | |