About a year ago I was watching a favorite YouTuber who does an ongoing series about missing people. I could write an entire piece about how well presented her information is and how abundantly honest her sincerity is. Her name is Kendall Rae, look her up on YouTube, I believe the series is called “Where Is…” At any rate, she led me to an organization founded in 2012 that deals with putting an end to child sex trafficking.
The organization, called THORN, has a focus on the cyber-crime aspect of human trafficking, when Kendall Rae was fundraising with them she raised over $100,000. As I watched Kendall’s videos, I noticed that in most of them there were teary-eyed people missing those kids, desperate to see them again. I thought, “Damn, I wish someone had cared about me like that.”
This isn't all, "Pity-Party, table for one" though, I have close up and personal experience with the foster care system in the United States and to be honest, it doesn’t seem terribly different than what I was hearing in the videos I was watching. I mean obviously there are differences, glaringly huge differences, and I am not trying in any way to diminish the terror that people who are trafficked go through. I am very well aware that they are not necessarily even in the same category. Yet there are similarities.
Foster kids are used for labor, for sex and as an outlet for all sorts of abuse. Some are made to pick a favorite creepy uncle, some are made to grift, and some are happy to end up in prison for it because it’s better than what they have to endure each day at "home." And no one talks about it, and no one believes them when they speak out. Often, they are quickly dismissed, given a trendy diagNONSENSE to wrap up in for the rest of their lives with a bottle of pills, a token crutch, a full deck of victim cards and a government check to barely keep them out of the streets. Things that don’t help, by the way.
I was in the system some time ago though, perhaps it’s different now. My fear is that it’s worse. And no one will ever know because no one is talking about it and no one is standing there, teary-eyed and missing these kids, these orphans. They just get passed to another family, in another town and hope this one doesn’t use the hook end of the hanger or the buckle part of the belt, or worse.
I’ve seen how some are found and there is a happy reunion and they are called survivors, and they are, in a different way though. The difference is that in cases where they are found, they are rescued, all that is left to survive is the aftermath, and believe me, that is no picnic and again, I am not aiming to diminish that in any way. However, I say hats off to the survivors who never get rescued.
I hope that people will consider the real survivors, surviving more than a supportive aftermath we're still living in it every day. There are far more survivors out there still in survival mode than there are people who have been lucky enough to be rescued, and still no one talks about it. No one talks about anything anymore, instead they scream at each other and create new groups of people to hate, like the ridiculous "Karen Movement" for example, divisive and ignorant to the core, just a sad reflection of current culture. So disappointing. Not much you can do about it, but you can do better, so get on with it.
The organization, called THORN, has a focus on the cyber-crime aspect of human trafficking, when Kendall Rae was fundraising with them she raised over $100,000. As I watched Kendall’s videos, I noticed that in most of them there were teary-eyed people missing those kids, desperate to see them again. I thought, “Damn, I wish someone had cared about me like that.”
This isn't all, "Pity-Party, table for one" though, I have close up and personal experience with the foster care system in the United States and to be honest, it doesn’t seem terribly different than what I was hearing in the videos I was watching. I mean obviously there are differences, glaringly huge differences, and I am not trying in any way to diminish the terror that people who are trafficked go through. I am very well aware that they are not necessarily even in the same category. Yet there are similarities.
Foster kids are used for labor, for sex and as an outlet for all sorts of abuse. Some are made to pick a favorite creepy uncle, some are made to grift, and some are happy to end up in prison for it because it’s better than what they have to endure each day at "home." And no one talks about it, and no one believes them when they speak out. Often, they are quickly dismissed, given a trendy diagNONSENSE to wrap up in for the rest of their lives with a bottle of pills, a token crutch, a full deck of victim cards and a government check to barely keep them out of the streets. Things that don’t help, by the way.
I was in the system some time ago though, perhaps it’s different now. My fear is that it’s worse. And no one will ever know because no one is talking about it and no one is standing there, teary-eyed and missing these kids, these orphans. They just get passed to another family, in another town and hope this one doesn’t use the hook end of the hanger or the buckle part of the belt, or worse.
I’ve seen how some are found and there is a happy reunion and they are called survivors, and they are, in a different way though. The difference is that in cases where they are found, they are rescued, all that is left to survive is the aftermath, and believe me, that is no picnic and again, I am not aiming to diminish that in any way. However, I say hats off to the survivors who never get rescued.
I hope that people will consider the real survivors, surviving more than a supportive aftermath we're still living in it every day. There are far more survivors out there still in survival mode than there are people who have been lucky enough to be rescued, and still no one talks about it. No one talks about anything anymore, instead they scream at each other and create new groups of people to hate, like the ridiculous "Karen Movement" for example, divisive and ignorant to the core, just a sad reflection of current culture. So disappointing. Not much you can do about it, but you can do better, so get on with it.