Stop Child Trafficking NOW walk...

How could I not know about this walk? I just found out about it tonight and I would do it in a heartbeat if it wasn't on Sunday. But I have to be in Relief Society on Sunday for my calling. So I'll be donating since I can't walk.

I'm encouraging everyone that reads this to find your local walk and if you can walk on Sunday, September 27, then sign up and get out there and gather pledges. There are walks happening all over the world on Sunday so there is bound to be a walk in your area. Or if you can't walk then please donate, if you can, to your local area walk.

New York City is lucky enough to have a Stiletto Run (I find that awesome.)

I just found out about this site tonight from the radio and I'm appalled by the statistics:

• 300,000 children in the U.S. are at risk every year for commercial sexual exploitation. - U.S. Departent of Justice


• 600,000 - 800,000 people are bought and sold across international borders each year; 50% are children, most are femail. The majority of these victims are forced into the commercial sex trade. - U.S. Department of State, 2004, Trafficking in Persons Report, Washington, D.C.


• An estimated 14,500 to 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked into the United States each year. The number of U.S. citizens trafficked within the country is even higher, with an estimated 200,000 American children at risk for trafficking into the sex industry. – U.S Department of Justice Report to Congress from Attorney General John Ashcroft on U.S. Government Efforts to Combat Trafficking in Persons


• There are open sex slavery cases in all 50 States. An estimated 10,000 sex slaves exist in New York City. – Red Light Children Campaign


• An estimated 2.5 million children, the majority of them girls, are sexually exploited in the multibillion dollar commercial sex industry – UNICEF


• Investigators and researchers estimate the average predator in the U.S. can make more than $200,000 a year off one young girl. – NBC Report by Teri Williams

This is disgusting and horrible, who in their right mind would do such things to children?! If we don't stand up and protect these kids, who will? And the spokesman for SCTNOW.ORG said something I completely agree with, it all begins with pornography.

Some may argue that pornography isn't dangerous but it is. It will twist your mind and you will do or act out things that you may never have imagined before. And it's so easily accessible, basically at our fingertips. It's an evil that will suck you in and corrupt you. I'm just saying.

This Sunday is their innagural walk and I hope to be able to walk next year, this is a cause I will be helping out with.