Girls off the Streets



No funny, quirky post today but I’m hoping that you’ll give me a few minutes so that I can tell you about a huge issue.

Every day millions of girls, many quite young, are raped to make money for others. They’ve been kidnapped and forced into sex slavery.

Human trafficking enslaves about 27 million people around the world. That is more than the population of Australia. Of these modern day slaves the UN estimates 79% of them are caught up in sexual trafficking. According to “Save the Children” at any one time across the world, around 1.8 million children are being abused through prostitution, child pornography and sex tourism. In the UK there are 5,000 child prostitutes. 75% of them are girls.

In December I’ll be traveling to Bangladesh and India to learn more about the Girls Off the Streets initiative through SIMaid. I talked about the upcoming trip on my radio program with SIMaid representative, Kieran Johnson. You can listen to our chat by clicking the play button on the audio plaer at the bottom of this post.

In Bangladesh there are approximately 500 000 children living on the streets due to poverty or abuse. Many girls who live on the streets are sexually exploited. The Indian Government states there are 2.8 million people prostituted in India, but human rights groups claim it is more like 15 million. 200 girls are entering into the sex trade every day with 80% of them doing so against their own free will.

I’ll be traveling to both countries with SIMaid to witness the work they do to stop trafficking and sex slavery while transforming the lives of young girls rescued. My role will be as a storyteller, communicating the need online, on radio and to churches back here in Australia.

I currently need to raise money for my travel costs (around $3000) and if you’d like to contribute please email me via my Contact Page so that I can let you know where to direct your money.

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