What would you do if I told you; there are 27 million slaves worldwide?
How would you respond if I told you; there are more slaves now, than when Lincoln was alive?
Now they’re not all black, and they’re usually not men,
but sisters and mothers and little children.
They’re not used for picking cotton or as someone else’s maid
they just make up what is known as
the Human Sex Trade.
For five dollars in Africa, you can have a girl for the night.
Do with her what you please; she won’t put up a fight.
She knows if she does, it will be her last night. Alive.
In Japan, child pornography is legal.
This dirty hobby some men have is considered legal.
But wouldn’t you believe, don’t be so naïve, it’s not only overseas,
It’s happening in our own backyard too.
But we’re going about it all wrong—
Not arresting the Johns, but the Does
Not prosecuting the pimps but the so called “hoes.”

Hi, I’m Sally,
I just turned 16 years old,
It was two years ago when I was taken from my home.
Kidnapped by a boy I thought loved me, but boy I was wrong.
I ended up in a brothel servicing all these Johns.
I wanted to escape, but believe me I couldn’t.
There were physical constraints and emotional ones too—
You think after what I did every night, I saw myself as one of you?
Tarnished with the undeserving title of “prostitute”
Victim to my pimps, and now your opinions too.
You think I chose this profession for myself,
But really I was stricken of my innocence, ripped of my virginity, and sold into Hell.
Unable to stop the hate—
Oops I meant rape.
Night after night.

I’m Gina, I just turned 18.
Constant fights with my parents, forced me to leave
my home,
where I thought maybe I could make it out on my own.
I can’t deny
that the rent was high
and it might have been time
to go back home.
But I thought once I was in, I could get out.
I made the mistake of believing I could control my body, not somebody else.
But 20 guys a night sure wasn’t my decision,
But my pimp had my hands around my neck, tears blurring my vision.
After that, he told me I wasn’t my own person anymore
but his possession, his girl, his whore.
It wasn’t survival of the fittest, or even survival of the prettiest—
It was survival of whoever could put out most and not fight back.
The drugs we were on, made it easier to comply-
But we grew so delusional we didn’t know there was another side.
We figured there was no way out and if there was, we weren’t worth it.

Hi, I’m “Insert the name of your sister, best friend, or mother”
because it’s a possibility any one of them could be another.
These monsters don’t have criteria or a method to their ways,
they take young, white, Asian, black, Hispanic—turn anyone into a slave.
But sex was never meant to be an item to sold
these girls lives were never meant to be taken from them, or withheld.
And the lies that they’re hearing, that they’re not worth it, were never meant to be told.
Now I know it’s a sad thought, but what’s done is done.
It only matters now—that you’re aware—how you choose to respond.
Because every thirty seconds another human becomes a victim of human sex trafficking
How are you going to respond?