In Case You Weren’t Listening

Well, for those of you who might have been wondering where I have been,since I have not been writing much lately, for at least the last month I havebeen dealing with a flood in my house. It can be very rainy here in the Pacific Northwest and this split-level home of mine has been inundated with seeping water. The first day I had about an inch of water which had permeated through the concrete walls and into two bedrooms, the laundry room, office, and bathroom. Our furniture had to be moved out and a company was called to come in and sloop up the water. Two rooms of carpeting had to be removed. I actuallyfelt like pulling my hair out as I did load after load of extra blankets, pillows and sleeping bags that had gotten wet. It continued to rain and the furniture, books, and whatnots were moved into a storage unit. Dehumidifiers
and fans were brought in. It continued to rain and we continued to have the crews come in and dry us out again. A permanent solution cannot be reached until it stops raining. What a pain!

While I was on the phone complaining about how awful it all was, I looked over and saw the footage of the recent earthquake, followed by a devastating tsunami, and the nuclear disaster that struck Japan. I had to stop and thank God for giving me just a little water to deal with and protecting my friends and family from being included in one of the many cataclysmic disasters we have seen around the world lately. There but for the grace of God, go I. Of course, next on my mind were the children.

Tens of thousands of Japanese people have lost their lives and hundreds of thousands more have been displaced. I am sure that every soul in their country was terror stricken at the prospect of losing loved ones, but they had a plan for disaster.  They truly cared about their neighbors and tried to take care of each other. The Japanese people had already taken measures with one of the best disaster preparedness backup
plans in the world. Because of their foresight, the children of Japan are less vulnerable to traffickers and pedophiles than many of the other countries who have recently met with disasters.

You see, human trafficking usually increases after natural disasters. When the earthquake of January, 2010 left Haiti in total ruins, child trafficking was already a huge issue there with more than 300,000 children already trapped into forced labor and being abused and exploited. Haiti is a country where 45%
of their population is under the age of fifteen. Add that fact with the chaos that surrounds a country during and after a disaster and the horrible poverty the country suffers with, and you have to know that many more of their children were put in jeopardy. Children came up missing from hospitals and shelters. Traffickers posing as rescuers and charitable organizations wanting to adopt, came crawling out of the cesspool ready to traumatize the children even further by selling them into servitude. Slavers targeted Haiti using the guise of God and religion supposedly to collect children and ship them purportedly back to the United States. Fortunately, the plot was discovered and stopped in one case. I must admit that there are truly good people who are doing just that. Helping the people along with children, but even as one group was caught as the children were crossing the border, how many groups of slavers simply left by sea routes? Better yet, how many are still doing just that? Stealing children and young people who will wind up in slavery or the sex industry! Now, with almost 80% of the population living in poverty there, the rate of children being sold into bondage has skyrocketed

When countries experience a tremendous loss or some kind of cataclysmic event, the minds and hearts of the people are usually focused on helping each other and formulating a plan for recovery. It is when a country is in chaos and has no clear plan that traffickers take advantage of the inability of officials
or any local authorities to keep track of people, especially children, and keep those families together. It has become apparent since the major earthquake, not only in Haiti, but in Peru and now Japan, slavers will actually see this as a great shopping opportunity to do what they do best. Abduct, procure, and enslave children.

These predators will stoop so low as to use a natural disaster in order to fulfill their quota of beautiful young children for their buyers. I have to wonder just how many kids and young people were killed or just plain taken never to be seen again after the ravaging of some of these countries. Slavers will use any guise needed to accomplish their goal. I keep hearing of America and other countries providing humanitarian missions to countries destroyed by natural disasters, but I must ask myself just who is providing security for the children? It certainly does not appear as if anyone is. With slavery being at an all time high on our planet it would only stand to reason that these animals would prey on the homeless, familyless, or wandering children in each of the devastated countries. I believe that a separate organized group of special
guardians be dispatched to trouble spots with the express job of  protecting children from predators and
slavers. If the United Nations wanted to do something that might make a positive difference for the children of the world, they should make such a project a first priority. And who would they use? It would have to be a private organization with volunteer members, each of who would pass the most stringent background checks in the United States. Certainly not the U.N. troops, who already have had such a dismal record of targeting children for their own use! Let’s see if they do that, or just do as they usually do. Count the number of statistics.

Remember, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke

Federal Hope For America’s Children

November 17, 2010 is a day that will hopefully go down in the history books of the United States as the day the American people stood up and cried “ENOUGH”! Help us save our children from sexual slavery and exploitation! Today it is absolutely imperative that the Congress of The United States vote on and pass house resolution 5575, known as the Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Deterrence and Victims Support Act of 2010. This act has two main objectives for benefiting children who are the victims of sex trafficking.

Sex trafficking of a child is defined by any child under the age of eighteen who is exploited for commercial sex, whether it is by force or without force.  First, this bill will authorize grants that will create a victim oriented approach in the way that these children are addressed. The children will no longer be considered criminals or juvenile offenders.  All too often, children who are found by law enforcement are labeled as incorrigible or as children prostituting themselves. This kind of mindset makes the child the criminal. They would finally have to be treated as the victims that they are. The second objective of this bill is for tracking information about children who are at a high risk for being trafficked for sex. This information will help to protect more kids who are in circumstances that they have no control over. Runaway children are finally included in this group.

The Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Deterrence and Victims Support Act of 2010 will be a start to end this terrible crime and strengthen the battle being waged against child sexual exploitation on the streets of America. The fight has already been taken to the traffickers by dedicated investigators, vigilantes, and police authorities throughout our nation. Now, we need everyone else to be aware and take action. Even though this bill is but a pittance of what is needed, it is another step in the long road to protect our children from predators. The bill will not end this repulsive iniquity, however it will force every state in the union to look upon the girls and boys as victims of a horrible crime, instead of as the perpetrators of crime. Further, it will help to establish resources to give these kids a safe place to run to, along with understanding and professional people who help them. Not someone to victimize them again, as law enforcement and society presently does.

At this time, there are only eighty beds available for these children when they are saved. Most are placed into juvenile detention centers. With the bill’s passage, victims will be able to receive services such as shelter, rehabilitative care, and medical care. Without these kinds of assistance the children continue to be victims and the healing time can take forever. In truth, with the passage of this landmark bill, these children will have a place to go instead of back to the streets or into incarceration. Since before the inception of Somewhere Out There, my husband Boots and I have been fighting this crime concerning children. We have been truly fortunate in finding caring sympathetic professionals to care for the children that we rescue. Can we in good conscience do less for those we know that are still at risk?

It is hard for the greater majority of Americans to come to the realization and truth that these children are not willing participants in the sex acts committed with them. These child victims are known to suffer with post traumatic stress disorder, sexually transmitted diseases, substance abuse and long lasting health problems. They endure violence and humiliation. Often, they have no choice other than death. America, these kids need help, not ridicule or retribution. I hope that everyone will support this very important bill and make your congressmen aware that you want them to  votes yes for this bill. After all, the next victim could be the children in their families too. Unfortunately, no child is excluded from being sexually exploited or enslaved.

Take Action!

Fight Child Trafficking

The trafficking of children is more than just a global “problem.” It has become a worldwide epidemic! Estimates from both UNICEF and the Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking have found that as many as 2.5 million children are being trafficked each year. The majority of these children are held as slaves for sexual exploitation or labor. This is a crime of deception, kidnapping, enslavement, and corruption.

As we look around the world, we see places like Cambodia where there is an estimated 30,000 child prostitutes. Some as young as five. India has reportedly the largest concentration of child prostitutes. Many of them are the children of sex workers. Their families have sold many of them into servitude because poverty has made the parents desperate for money. Girls as young as twelve are trafficked as “mail-order brides” mainly from Asia and Eastern Europe. Great numbers of children are trafficked out of West and Central Africa for domestic work and sexual exploitation. All over Africa and Central America, children are trafficked both in and out of the countries and some are sent as far away as the Middle East and Europe. In most of these cases the children are powerless to control their fates and are at great risk of violence.

So, here in the United States we smugly feel very good that we longer tolerate human slavery or trafficking and exploitation of children. Right? Wrong! Many people do not believe that child trafficking and slavery exists in the United States, but contrary to popular belief, human trafficking is not just a problem in developing and poverty stricken countries. There have been cases of human trafficking in every state in our country. According to the U.S. Department of Justice 300,000 children a year are currently at risk of commercial sexual exploitation. Where do you think the majority of those 2,100 children reported missing every day go? The most susceptible are the runaways, throwaways, illegal aliens, and children left to their own devises. These children seem to fall prey easier to pimps, gang activity, or Internet contacts that lead to sexual exploitation. Predators seek out vulnerable children and then keep them enslaved in situations that they cannot escape from. The victims are often lured with the promises of clothes, jewelry, and love, or threatened with violence on them or their families. Many are ashamed and do not know who to tell. Often they go Unnoticed or are ignored by local law enforcement and social service agencies. This is quite understandable once you realize that the average age of a child being recruited into child prostitution is twelve years of age! Hardly old enough to make any decision, much less those on sexual matters. According to a special NBC report by Teri Williams, investigators and researchers have estimated the average predator in the U.S. can conservatively make $200,000 a year off one young girl.

We have to ask ourselves why child trafficking such a fast growing and lucrative crime around the world? It is just plain greed and money. How else is it that child trafficking has become a 12 billion dollar a year industry that is rivaling the illegal drug trade? The answer lies in the supply and demand for children in the sex industry. As long as there are predators and perverts who would take advantage of children and be willing to pay the price for that ability, there will be the greedy criminal ready to fill the order. This heinous crime must end by any and all means! If that means not only locking up the traffickers, but also the pedophiles exploiting innocent youngsters. The laws are already enacted. It is a criminal act to illegally trade human beings for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation or forced labor. Maybe if there were more death penalties or life imprisonments for these sick vermin who are caught trafficking or abusing children, then maybe we will finally put an end to this sickening and depraved practice.

Every child has an absolute right to be protected from all forms of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse, or slavery. This perversion causes untold psychological and physical damage to these child victims and has to be seen as the ultimate evil. To take advantage of the most vulnerable on our planet has to be the most despicable act that any human can do to another human.

Let Me Introduce Myself

I would like to introduce myself. My name is Leola Butler. I am an author, wife, mother, grandmother, caregiver, and a child advocate. I currently reside in the beautiful Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. I have devoted much of my life to children’s issues and the laws concerning their rights and protection.

I recently published my book Trapped By A Dream: When Fates Collide. The story itself is taken from the journal of my husband of thirty-six years, Boots Butler. In my book, a young Russian girl is deceived and abducted. This girl is looking for legitimate employment. Instead, she finds herself in a world of human slavery and child prostitution. The details of her rescue are chronicled in this story. Boots was the head investigator and team leader for this case. This book is non-fiction. I wish I could say it was not.

In 1992, Boots and I helped in the founding of the nonprofit organization, Somewhere Out There. The organization is dedicated to the rescue and return of abducted, kidnapped, runaway, and exploited children. For the last seventeen years I have been the secretary/ treasurer and case controller for Somewhere Out There. Through the years I have heard stories of all kinds of unspeakable crimes against children and have listened to the desperate pleas of those parents who were looking for their lost children. My heart goes out to all of them, and to all the others who find themselves in the same situation. Trapped By A Dream: When Fates Collide is a story from a Somewhere Out There case.

Which brings me to why I wrote Trapped By A Dream: When Fates Collide. I have to say the first reason was so this wonderful success story could be told. I believe we all need to be aware of not only the horrible acts that are committed against children, but also that there are people that care enough to do what they can. The members of this rescue team put their own lives on the line, risking even death to help someone who couldn’t help themselves. I believe it is a story worth telling. A story of bravery, hope, and triumph.

I would also like everyone to know that I believe we all have a responsibility to protect the children, whether they are next door, or across the ocean. The first way we can be instrumental in stopping these child crimes is to admit that they do happen in America, because I can assure you they do. We cannot bury our heads in the sand forever and say these things do not happen here and that they do not affect all of us either directly, or indirectly. Here in the United States, we also need to be aware that we are not immune to the child crimes of sexual exploitation, abduction, abuse, and yes, even slavery. Parents and caregivers, and everyone has a responsibility to watch for predators who would hurt our children, and we need to teach our children how to avoid and fight off predators.

Please visit my websites @ www.trappedbyadream.com and www.bootsbooksbyleolabutler.com