Sexual trafficking

How this CBE workshop stirred up memories of situations I have observed throughout my life time! My father became a pastor because the pastor in the liturgical church of his childhood failed to answer the pleas for help he posed regarding the terrifying tangle of incest ensnaring his brothers and sisters, and instigated by his own atheistic father. He was less than 18 years old, when after seeking refuge in alcohol, he found the God of mercy proclaimed in a tent meeting. Finding himself powerless to rescue his own sisters, and having been given a death threat by his father, he made his way to a Wesleyan college in Houghton, New York.

I was struck by the parallels of physical, mental, and emotional entrapment of incestual ancestry and current sexual trafficking. I picture both systems as giant octopi with tendrils reaching out and captivating the most vulnerable.

Lisa, who led this workshop, works for the Salvation Army and provided us with many resources, which we could tap into to receive information for care takers and adoptive parents of young victims. The figures on the accelerating increase in sexual trafficking, as well as increases in devious means use by traffickers, is astounding but believable.

– Marion