Mega thanks to everyone who left comments on "A plea for help from fellow abolitionists." Julie Taylor Shematz, founder of Beauty From Ashes, and I really appreciate all the great insight.
At Born2Fly, we're still looking into places in the US where we can test the B2F Project to stop child trafficking.
Meanwhile here's what Julie came up with for her program:
Last week we appealed to our fans, partners and fellow abolitionists to help us come up with a creative way to speak about human trafficking to children ages 3-11 for a local church's Vacation Bible School (VBS) program.
The huge challenge was to not use words like "human trafficking," "sex," "abuse," "victim," "rape," "prostitution," "stripping," etc. Our objective was to come up with blurbs to be read every day for VBS's 'Ministry Minute'.
The church is having Beauty From Ashes (BFA) be their support ministry for VBS and wants to tell the children everyday about us, what we're doing, why, and ultimately educate the children to prevent them from becoming victims of human sex trafficking.
The response was awesome and we thank everyone that contributed. We want to especially thank Sanibel (Florida) Community Church for boldly going, to our knowledge, where no other children's program has ever gone before.
With the the numbers of domestic minors being forced or lured into human sex trafficking an alarming 100,000-300,000 a year and the average age of entry into prostitution being 11-14, they recognized the need to implement preventative educational measures and we applaud them for doing such!
To read the five days of 'Ministry Minutes' for VBS, click here.
If you have additional ideas on how anti-trafficking organizations can teach awareness to very young children, we'd love to hear from you. Just leave a comment below.
I hope you publish every idea that comes to you on how children can be given greater awareness. However, it will take active involvement of parents, law enforcement, and concerned citizens to stop this crime. Traffickers can be expected to use deception, intimidation, hypnosis, drugs, torture, and infiltration of the police -- in other words, every trick in the book -- to get at their prey and avoid prosecution.
Posted by: Jerry McMullin | June 17, 2011 at 11:52 PM