It’s not a Kiss song anymore.  And you’re not so quick to sway to such a tune nowadays anyway.

You’re a parent of two children.  Your younger one is nine and he’s into baseball, video games, and all things iPad.  He still loves to cuddle with you on the couch.  Your older one, your sweet heart, is twelve now and she’s beautiful.  She’s got your eyes but not your big ears… thank God.  She spends more time painting her nails and less time with you on the couch.  She likes to shop, she likes to look pretty and she’s not sure if she should be a cheer leader or just hang with her friends more.  She’s not nine.  She’s no where near nineteen either.

She’s still your little girl.

Did you know that she’s being watched?  And if she’s not, her friend is… or someone she knows.  Did you know that her school is no different than any other middle school or high school in your city, or county. or state.  There are other parents, with their pride-and-joy’s at other schools who are being enticed just like she is… or her friend… or her classmate.  Enticed by what?  By whom?  For what?

I can tell you for what.  But you won’t want to think about it.  You’ll want to turn your head and say not in my neighborhood.  Not in my kid’s school.  Not here.  Not me.

Sure, I can tell you.  In fact, I will.  I’m going to.  But when I do, you’ll have to consider the fact that if it’s not your child, or her friend, that it’s someone just like her, just as susceptible… as vulnerable.  Does it matter if she’s yours?  Or someone else’s who is pulled in?  Drawn in.  Would you not want another to help protect your child if they could?  To help keep your child from being enslaved?

“What!?” you say.  Enslaved?  Slavery?   “Not my child,” you say.  “For what?” you ask.

For sex.

Your child or your child’s friend or someone she knows is being targeted, or will be, by a sexual predator who’s interest is in exploiting your sweet little girl for profit.

And yes, your child is just as vulnerable as her friend, as your neighbor… as any other girl.

For sex.

They are good, these pimps.  They infiltrate your family and sit at your dinner table and convince you they’re safe.  They lavish your sweet girl with gifts, both material and of love.  They give her a false sense of value and worth and they carefully pull her away from you and then they very skillfully embed her into an underworld of sexual exploitation.  It is a modern day slavery.  It is Human Trafficking.

Don’t ignore it.  Google it.  Read about it and then take action to help not just your child, but one more.  Right now, the United States is the mecca for Human Trafficking.  Not overseas.  Not in another country.  Here.  Right here, in your city, your county, your state.  Your neighborhood.

You know you are busy.  You know how much you love your nine year old and the way he buries his head into your shoulder on the couch.  You know how much he fights with the older one.  How the two can be at each other’s throats.  You know how hard you work at making your family a family.  You know you’re probably not going to be able to do much to help this cause even though it terrifies you if you really let yourself go there.

But you know you can read.  You know how to google.  You know how to text.  So read about it.  And then tell the people you talk to everyday to do the same.  Forward this blog or perhaps an article that talks about the actual horrors, (that you didn’t have to read about here), that your child, or her friend or classmate will be subject to.  Being active is as simple as being conscious.  Being aware.  You can help your family by helping one more family.  And helping can simply mean raising awareness one family at a time.  One forward at a time.  One Facebook share at a time.

Because the truth is… Sex sells.  Shamelessly.  Loudly.  In the open.  In the darkness.  On TV.  In magazines. On the internet.  At Home.  And at your child’s school, where smart, scheming predators watch and wait and then woo and wisp away your sweet girl’s innocence… or her friends, or her classmate’s.

X-Out sexual slavery now.

Raise your own awareness and then tell another mother, another father, another friend.  Just tell another.  Even Anne Hathaway made reference to Human Trafficking in her Oscar’s speech.  Did you catch it when she said, “Hopefully, that someday in the not too distant future the misfortunes of [Les Miserables character, Fantine] will only be part of stories and not part of real life.”  Too many said her speech was practiced.  We should all have such a chance to be so practiced…

Raise awareness.

Your sweet girl is worth it.  I know mine is.