Rants on Primetime

Last night I watched Prime Time - Crime air the story about two teen aged cousins from Toledo, Ohio who went out for a soda and disappeared. It turns out they were kidnapped and basically sold into prostitution. There were lots of comments flying around the internet today about a number of aspects of this story but I haven't seen one on the thing that really got to me.

Aside for the fact it took the police over 90 minutes to respond to the 911 calls for help when the family located one of their children by themselves and the girl's father was beaten to a bloody pulp by the pimp and two adult prostitutes. The thing that haunted me was the inference that this is only a problem with teenagers. I know from personal experience that the sex trade in children is not restricted by age.

I think one of the quotes from the story was "It's not uncommon to see 12- and 13-year-olds out. What we've learned is if you have adult prostitution in an area, there's probably child prostitution occurring as well. So it's more of a black market; it's more underground, but it's there." Another quote from the story The FBI estimates that currently there are 100,000 minors in America being forced to trade sex for money Yet they kept talking about teenagers........... the child sex trade includes children of all ages.

There are no age limits on perversion. There are plenty of sickos out there who are into sexual exploitation in infants and toddlers. Many pedophiles are turned off by the onset of puberty so why can't these people get it right and just call a spade a spade. There is a huge problem with the trafficking of children for sexual exploitation in this country.

It's not that I want to negate or take anything away from the horrible experience that happened to these two cousins because nothing could be further from my mind. BUT I do want people to open their eyes and realize this is a problem with ALL ages of children. Until society can see the light and acknowledge the problem for what it is, there's no way it's going to be stopped or even slowed down.

Younger children are much easier to keep quiet and hide, not to mention completely brainwash, than the older kids. I think that probably makes these crimes with the littler kids much more difficult to pin down. Without a willing to confront the problem that will continue to be the case which really frustrates me.

I know that this trade happens with even the smallest of children because I lived through it. AND I was not alone! I saw dozens and dozens of other children that were used as well in all sorts of perversions from prostitution to the making of pornography.....some were even murdered in the making of snuff films. That stuff sure hasn't stopped in all these years..........and as a society, we're not even speaking honestly about it. It's about time we get started bringing this topic into the light.

PS - This was a good diversion for me......getting angry has always been helpful for keeping the lid on things. I still haven't located my journals but am doing OK.