About

More than Just a Race…

The smell of urine sat stale in the humid motionless mid-day air. The sound of tuberculosis-
induced coughing could be heard throughout the closet sized rooms. Heading up the
dilapidated stair steps where rats sat in the comfort of safety, the sight of sex slave after sex
slave waking from a night of forced sex to begin readying themselves for another night of work
was overwhelming. The daily reality of a sex slave was present before me, but only for a time. I
left that place. They cannot.

More than three million individuals around the world are being exploited annually in the
multibillion-dollar sex trade, one million of which are children. The total global market of sex
trafficking is estimated to be more than $32 billion. Of the people who earn this staggering
number, 50 percent are minors (children and early teens) and 80 percent are women. For
many in the Western world, the problem is unknown. For those who are aware, it is faceless
and nameless and is met with initial concern. However, that initial concern often erodes into
a wish-that-it-were-not-so malaise that never produces action. For others the problem seems
so overwhelming that one begins to ask, in light of such insurmountable problems how can
I do anything to bring change? Yet each slave has a name, a story, a life, and if others step
into her need—a hope. Regardless of the anonymity of those enslaved, regardless of the
insurmountable odds, the question in need of an answer is not how can I do anything, but more
so, how can I not do something?