It’s not really a secret that my FBI Psychics series touches on some serious topics–date rape & child abuse are just a couple of the topics that I touch on.  With The Reunited, I started learning about human trafficking-slavery-something that we often don’t think about in this day and age.  It was a disturbing thing to read about and working that into the story and still telling the story I had to tell? Not easy.

Human trafficking is a very real problem in our world, even in the US.  Yeah. Even here, where slavery was supposedly eradicated back in the 1800s.

It hurts the heart to think of it, but all over the world, people…children…are sold, for a few bucks.

Blogger and friend Limecello is doing her yearly Social Media Social Good drive this year, raising funds and awareness right now and this year, she’s focusing on human trafficking.  Here’s a chance to help, and all you have to do is comment.  You can read some of the stats, make a comment, and people are pledging money for every comment.  If you want to take the extra step and donate funds, that’s awesome.

It’s a grim topic.  It’s a hard one.  But it’s one we need to look at, because we can’t fix it without knowing about it.

Some of the stats Lime has on her site

• According to a 2009 Washington Times article, the Taliban buys children as young as seven years old to act as suicide bombers. The price for child suicide bombers is between $7,000-$14,000
• Human trafficking occurs in all fifty states in the U.S. (You can check your state “grade” which might be alarming.) The FBI estimates that over 100,000 children and young women are trafficked in America today. They range in age from nine to 19, with the average being age 11. Many victims are not just runaways or abandoned, but are from “good” families who are coerced by clever traffickers.
• After drug dealing, trafficking of humans is tied with arms dealing as the second-largest criminal industry in the world.
• In the European Union alone, about 880,000 people are in forced labour, according to ILO estimates. That’s 1.8 in every 1,000 persons.
• Human trafficking is a $9.8 billion domestic industry, with at least 100,000 children being used as prostitutes in America each year.
• Two children are sold every minute

Here’s the link to Lime’s site.  Make a comment.  Help raise money to prevent trafficking and help the survivors.  And thank you.