Endangered Children

This is not light reading… sorry.

I heard a very disheartening story on the radio yesterday about child prostitution. Like any rational parent, it made me uncomfortable so I almost switched to some mindless music, but then I thought “this problem exists because people don’t want to hear about it, let alone address the underlying causes.” I forced myself to listen as a young woman recounted her days on the street as a twelve-year-old prostitute. Her mother had abandoned her and she ran away from a group home and found herself in the company of evil, opportunistic people. She was taken in by a pimp and forced to have sex and use drugs. Eventually, she had to endure one of the most inhumane things imaginable when her pimp traded her to a dealer for drugs.

You may be thinking this story takes place in a third-world country, but no…these events took place in the United States, and similar stories of horror are currently being imposed upon the innocent in many countries the world over.

The girl in this true story was saved from probable death when the drug dealer was pulled over by police while she was in the backseat. The police did not initially behave as rescuers and she was jailed as a criminal. Eventually, she spoke to an empathetic counselor who realized she was a victim. She endured the most horrific crimes humans are capable of, and sadly, she is one of the ‘lucky ones’ who made it out.

The part of the story that made me the angriest was that of nearly 50 recently rescued children, only a few had even been reported missing. How could these parents not care about the fate of their child? Some have used the term ‘throw-away children’ to describe these poor souls that have no one to love them. A label that harsh should never be necessary to describe a fellow human being.

This must not be tolerated. The vulnerable must be protected and the criminals must be punished. The parents who irresponsibly have children, then give up on parenting when it proves to be hard are also criminals. There needs to be more education, prosecution, and possibly intervention. I am not suggesting a pro-Big Brother agenda, but I would like to live in a world where becoming a parent by birth took as much effort, responsibility, and dedication as adopting a child. A child is the most precious thing on this Earth and it saddens me that anyone could ever think of discarding them.