I came home and buried my head under a blanket. It's worse than we thought!
This very distinguished man works in a department that investigates and prosecutes crimes against children in OK.
The statistics he shared were horrible, the stories horrific. Unlike most of us think, child pornography is NOT innocent naked baby pictures that grandma's adore. You know, the ones of the smiling, bald-headed baby perched on a soft fuzzy blanket. Nope, it's NOTHING like that.
It's actually photos or videos of children being tortured in some way. (I'll let your imagination take it from there!) The Internet is the store where these items are bought, sold and posted in not-so-secret files. The images number into the millions. You see, sometimes it only takes a couple of minutes alone with a child and a cell phone equipped with a camera. (It takes YEARS for the chidren to be able to articulate what happened. Some secrets are kept forever.) Other unspeakable videos found by authorities have been produced over hours, sometimes involving many children with online "suggestions" by viewers with ideas of new torture.
He shared confessions of some men, their stories and their sentences! Yes, it's a Federal Crime, but only a small percentage of criminals are caught and incarcerated. Why? Basically because there are more out there than there are sands of the sea!
Awful pictures and videos are just the beginning. Desires quickly escalate, children are held in cages OR in silence in their own homes, waiting for the next visit by their abusers. Computer experts can reveal a child abuse case every 90 seconds. It then becomes a challenge for the prosecutors to prioritize them. Which one will get the attention of the overworked staff today? What a burden!
15.6 MILLION children are abused, often by their parents. 5-8 % are reported, 29% of those reported are arrested. If a child is under 6 years it's less than that.
Because I believe the first word I ever uttered was WHY, I have to get to the bottom of this.
Why is our society going to hell in a hand basket? Why are the innocent and helpless suffering when they should be cherished and protected?
There are LOTS of opinions from folks much smarter than me. There are wiser theories than I will ever imagine. I'm sure psychologists and sociologists are studying this in universities all over the world. It would be great if they could come to a consensus and we'd hear about it soon.
But, this afternoon I am wondering, trying to put the dots together.
As a big picture type of thinker, here's my conclusion.
When a society determines, accepts and even encourages a mother to kill her own unborn child, why should I be surprised when someone not even related feels the freedom to harm a 3 year old, a 6 or 12 year old? When the basic maternal instinct is suppressed, should we expect strangers to act any differently?
Abortion as birth control has FAR REACHING effects to the culture as a whole. It is not just a woman's body being affected, OR even the death of that one child, it is our whole nation of children. We are shouting from the rooftops that life is NOT sacred, whether that life is pre-born, 1, 2, 3, or 5 years old!
Human Trafficking ($32 BILLION industry) is just another version of this total disregard for human beings! It is dangerous to be a child or a woman in America!
WHEN did we decide that LIFE can be discarded so casually?
As the DOJ representative declared, "it's the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about but would rather pretend it's not there."
We got a good look at the elephant this morning, and we're TALKING.
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