The Spread of Child Trafficking

by Fr Shay Cullen

Unpleasant as it is we must not turn the page, look away and ignore this social evil that is destroying the lives of hundreds of thousands of children and families. The spread of child sexual abuse all over the world is the terrible crime that few want to acknowledge and fight.

The high number of trafficked children, abducted and sold into the sex trade in developed and developing countries is unbelievable but at least 2.5 million are thought to be victimized at any given time and more are added to that list daily. The fact that so little is spent and done to combat it is an indictment of the international community and national government officials who tolerate it. Officials actually promote and license the establishments that foster sex tourism and human trafficking.

Hundreds of thousands of sex tourists from developed countries come to Southeast Asia every year to engage in pernicious acts of child sexual abuse and sex trafficking. The Philippines is notorious for these crimes of human trafficking and child abuse and many customers are coming from international pedophile rings. They abuse the children, make videos and sell them online. The international authorities do little to intervene and local authorities seem to condone and promote the trade in young people in the sex industry.

The institutional Catholic Church fails to challenge sufficiently this pernicious evil that destroys the fabric of family life. People of all beliefs and principles, social justice advocates and those who value human rights and dignity ought to be outraged and take action wherever they can. They can campaign with groups online and challenge their politicians to act to protect children and curb foreign aid to governments that fail to implement international child protection standards.

Full post here.