Some food for thought: The International Labor Organization estimates that every year 1.8 million children are forced into prostitution or pornography every year. Now there are two estimates regarding the issue of child labor trafficking. UNICEF estimates that there are over 158 million children exploited for labor. The International Labor Organization estimates 200 million.
Sex trafficking in my opinion is a heinous, dehumanizing and perverted crime. The damaged that is caused to these children is heartbreaking. No child deserves to be raped or abused!
Now what I am about to say may upset people or may lead people to think that I do not care about sex trafficking, which believe me I do care very much about this issue. However as a true human rights activist, it hurts me to see that child labor trafficking is ignored. Many people believe that these children do not suffer. My question is have you ever met a child labor trafficking victim and heard their story?
Most people do not understand the type of working conditions that these children are forced to work in. The children work in unsanitary and deplorable conditions. Many of these children are beaten, branded, starved, raped and even killed. Many of these children are exposed to harmful pesticides, chemicals and other elements that can cause problems both internally and externally.
I want to bring this up to show that even thought I speak more on the issue of sex trafficking, I myself cannot ignore labor trafficking either. And honestly, it wasn’t until I started meeting the labor trafficking victims that I finally understood how they too can suffer. I learned a great deal from them. This changed my outlook on the issue.
My question to you is why do you think so many of us ignore the issue of child labor trafficking? Sex trafficking is horrible, but with the sheer number of children being exploited for labor, should we do more to advocate for them?
Let me know what you think. I want to open up the lines of discussion on this issue as I feel as though this would be a good opportunity to learn from each other.
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