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America is the land of the free and home of the brave, right? America is a land where everyone has an equal opportunity to experience true freedom, correct?
Unfortunately, this is not the case. Believe it or not more men, women, and children are being held captive, as slaves, in America than at any other time in America’s history. In fact, writer Caroline Nye reported that, “according to the CIA, more than 1,000,000 people are enslaved in the US today.” If this statistic isn’t frightening enough, Kevin Bales, founder of Free the Slaves Organization, estimated somewhere between 14,000 and 17,500 individuals are brought into the U.S. every year.
How can this be, after everything our nation has been through to come together, to fight against slavery, and to ensure that America is truly the land of the free? Additionally, how, and why has this huge issue of modern day slavery been going on for so long, and without more people trying to stop it?
In order to stop this horrific act we, as Americans, have got to become aware. We have to be aware of the extent that modern slavery is taking place. Statistics like, “between one-hundred thousand and three-hundred thousand children in the US are at risk for sex trafficking each year,” should be mind blowing to anyone.
If that statistic isn’t enough to catch your attention, maybe this one will be, “In the US, as many as 2.8 million children live on the streets, a third of whom are lured into prostitution within 48 hours of leaving home.”
Many more statistics just like these two can be found on the Human Slavery Statistics website.
As much as our nation has been trough with the issue of slavery, I can’t even believe this is still taking place. We have got to come together and put an end to this for good.
As Rob Morris said, “It will take tenacity. We need to be committed for the long haul. We don’t give up … even when it gets hard. The reality is traffickers are committed 24/7. We must be at least that committed to stopping them”
