UNICEF estimates that as many as 2 million children and young people are exploited in the worldwide sex trade every year – that’s four every minute. Can you imagine what the governments of the world would do if a city of two million people was taken captive and exploited and abused every day? If you think that’s bad, here is a statistic that should break your heart and bring you to your knees: only 1 per cent of those who are abducted into the sex trade are being rescued from it! You say, ‘What about the other 99 per cent?’ When they get too old to have value to their pimps, or too sick to work, or become pregnant, or diseased, they’re thrown away like rubbish. These are the ‘walking wounded’ who carry emotional and mental scars and struggle with the effects for the rest of their lives.

Perhaps you’re thinking, ‘It’s sad, and it’s shocking, but thank God it’s not my children or grandchildren.’ Thank God, indeed! But as a redeemed child of God, you have a responsibility to care about it. Jesus said He came to ‘heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives…to set at liberty those who are oppressed’ (v. 18 NKJV). That means instead of avoiding the problem, you must become aware, alarmed, and activated. Only when enough people speak up do politicians start to act. So speak up! Start praying about it. Support ministries that are involved in it. That way, you will be able to stand before God one day and say, ‘Lord, I did what I could about it!’