Is Child Prostitution an Issue Just for Developing Nations?

In my research I came upon an article in U.S. News & World Report 10/24/2005, Vol. 139 by author Bay Fang, that is worth quoting here.

The trafficking in children for sex was once thought to be a problem beyond America’s borders. But the FBI and the Justice Department have now started focusing intently on the issue–and what they’ve found is shocking. Thousands of young girls and boys are falling victim to violent pimps, who move them from state to state, which makes it a federal matter. The younger they are, the more they’re worth on the street. “There is a greater and greater demand for younger and younger kids,” says Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. “America doesn’t look. People are shocked and horrified when they hear these girls’ stories. They say, ‘That doesn’t happen here. It happens in Thailand. Or the Philippines.’ But once you start shining a light on it, you find it everywhere.”

This is exactly what many Christians are doing…shining a light (the Light) on it. Many churches became involved in the global trafficking of children through the work and message of the International Justice Mission. I was forever changed by IJM’s Gary Haugen with the words of his book, The Good News About Injustice, and began to research and write about global child prostitution. But, during these years of writing, something began to surface in my own Atlanta, Georgia. Our Southern city of hospitality had become one of the top five American destinations for wicked men to purchase a child for sex.

So, no longer can we say that the issue was for the developing nations. We now must slay the beast on our own soil.