Note: This is the second post appearing on FAIPs as part of the 16 DAYS OF ACTIVISM AGAINST GENDER BASED VIOLENCE (November 25 - December 20, 2012). Posts appearing here will look at this issue with a focus on our most vulnerable and defenseless - our children. On July 29, 2010, the President and CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Ernie Allen, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives. His testimony revealed the alarming and truths of innocence lost on Main Street, USA. What we know as "child trafficking", Allen reported, is an organized criminal illicit enterprise that preys on our most vulnerable - our children.
At the time of his testimony, over 250,000 children between the ages of 10 to 17 were estimated to be involved in commercial sexual exploitation in the US and of that number, 150,000 were victims of child prostitution. It is important to note, that these numbers are a per year estimate and NOT a total estimate. In fact, Allen conservatively asserts that roughly 200,000 plus runaway/thrownaway girls [between 12 and 17 years old] are lured into prostitution each year.
These children become the slaves of their pimps, their abductors, their slave masters who more times than not, hiding in plain site. They no longer put their victims out on the corners of Skid Row, but rather use the internet to solicit their patrons. Their iron chains and shackles have been replaced by fear, drugs, false hope and the inability to simply walk away.
According to Love Our Children USA, the leading national nonprofit and prevention organization fighting all forms of violence and neglect against children in the U.S., the congressional leaders listed below have SAID NO to Child Predators. As you will note, this list has not been updated in a while as Gabrielle Giffords is listed as Representative-Elect for Arizona. So perhaps this list has increase since its last update. I certainly hope so, otherwise my congressional leaders appear to be - once again - MIA (probably over on K Street)...
For All Intents & Purposes, So Glad You Stopped By! HeB
HeB is the owner of For All Intents & Purposes. As a SwAAW (Strong-willed African-American Woman), HeB reserves the right to speak her mind, voice her opinion, and just tell it like it is. A Baby-boomer - whose voice was shaped by the Last Poets, the Funkadelics, Malcolm, Martin, incense, and black-lights - HeB's voice is not dictated by her employer, professional,social, philanthropic, academic, educational or service or organization of which she is a member or affiliated.
Note: Many thanks to my blog Twin, From My Brown Eyed View, for the reminder that issues of import oftimes remain silent unless we lift our voices to tell!
In 1980, women activists groups inspired by the remarkable Las Mariposas (the butterflies) sisters, began to mark November 25 as a day against violence. On December 20, 1993 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Declaration of the Elimination of Violence Against Women designating, this day, November 25 as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in December 1999.
"Millions of women and girls around the world are assaulted, beaten, raped, mutilated or even murdered in what constitutes appalling violations of their human rights. [...] We must fundamentally challenge the culture of discrimination that allows violence to continue. On this International Day, I call on all governments to make good on their pledges to end all forms of violence against women and girls in all parts of the world, and I urge all people to support this important goal." Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, United Nations.
During the next 16 DAYS OF ACTIVISM AGAINST GENDER BASED VIOLENCE (November 25 - December 20, 2012) FAIPs will look at this issue with a focus on our most vulnerable and defenseless - our children.
Over 3 million
children are reported as victims of physical, sexual, verbal and
emotional abuse each year...
Violence and neglect against children is reported-on average of every 10 seconds...
Each year almost 1.8 million children are reported missing - many of them abducted from their own homes and front yards...
Child violence permanently disables 18,000 children and 565,000 children are seriously injured every year...
Violence and neglect against children kills more than 3 children every day in America. Most of the children who die are younger than six years of age...
One in five
children will be sexually abused by the age of 18...
97% of
individuals institutionalized for violent crimes were abused
as children...
It is not a stretch to surmise that abused and neglected children are more times than not the children of abused parents - generally the mothers. We must fight against the circle of pain, neglect, and violence that tears away at our families and are very existence. Sixteen days is a start....
For All Intents & Purposes, So Glad You Stopped By!
HeB
HeB is the owner of For All Intents & Purposes. As a SwAAW (Strong-willed African-American Woman), HeB reserves the right to speak her mind, voice her opinion, and just tell it like it is. A Baby-boomer - whose voice was shaped by the Last Poets, the Funkadelics, Malcolm, Martin, incense, and black-lights - HeB's voice is not dictated by her employer, professional,social, philanthropic, academic, educational or service or organization of which she is a member or affiliated.
Hurricane Sandy is on her way toward the east coast and she's coming with a vengeance. Bearing down on millions of people in her wake, Sandy is estimated to cost that region nearly $3.2 billion in damages. And of course, we hesitate to even consider the potential lost of lives when considering those who will not - or cannot - evacuate.
I hesitate to politicize this inevitable horrific storm, but for all intents and purposes, I have to tell you that even in the face of disaster, Willard is still out of touch. I mean, really, even Fox News is reporting on Sandy's 900 mile path and what does the republican candidate for president say? He says:
I know that right now some people in the country are a little nervous about a storm about to hit the coast.
Some people, Mitt? A little nervous, Willard? A storm?
There is an estimated 60 million people in the direct and indirect Sandy's path. And no one knows exactly what will happen when she hits. What they do know is that Sandy is own her way in from the east and will collide with a nor'easter coming from the west. While I am not a meteorologist, I have sense enough to know that when hurricane and nor'easter are used in the same sentence to forecast the weather as A STORM is probably not an adequate word to use. And that would make anyone in their right mind more than A LITTLE NERVOUS!!!
But, in all fairness, I suspect Willard's handlers probably wrote that out for him and made him swear not to go off script. And I suspect he was hurried off the stage before taking questions about disaster relief. I'm sure he forgot what he said, but I'm sure he stands behind whatever he said.
So, unless he does one of his proverbial flip-flops, Romney would leave it up to the states private sector in the wake of disaster. Or at least that's what he told CNN's John King in July, 2011.
KING: What else, Governor Romney? You've been a chief executive of a state. I was just in Joplin, Missouri. I've been in Mississippi and Louisiana and Tennessee and other communities dealing with whether it's the tornadoes, the flooding, and worse. FEMA is about to run out of money, and there are some people who say do it on a case-by-case basis and some people who say, you know, maybe we're learning a lesson here that the states should take on more of this role. How do you deal with something like that?
ROMNEY: Absolutely. Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that's even better.
Instead of thinking in the federal budget, what we should cut -- we should ask ourselves the opposite question. What should we keep? We should take all of what we're doing at the federal level and say, what are the things we're doing that we don't have to do? And those things we've got to stop doing, because we're borrowing $1.6 trillion more this year than we're taking in. We cannot...
KING: Including disaster relief, though?
ROMNEY: We cannot -- cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we'll all be dead and gone before it's paid off. It makes no sense at all.
Thank goodness, NO, THANK GOD, we have a leader who recognizes that Sandy is much more than a storm to be a little nervous about. By authorizing FEMA to identify, mobilize, and the resources necessary to Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Maryland the President once again exhibits true and decisive leadership in the face of a devastating emergency about to land at our doorstep.
For All Intents & Purposes, So Glad You Stopped By! HeB
HeB is the owner of For All Intents & Purposes. As a SwAAW (Strong-willed African-American Woman), HeB reserves the right to speak her mind, voice her opinion, and just tell it like it is. A Baby-boomer - whose voice was shaped by the Last Poets, the Funkadelics, Malcolm, Martin, incense, and black-lights - HeB's voice is not dictated by her employer, professional,social, philanthropic, academic, educational or service or organization of which she is a member or affiliated.
