FBI: parents are trafficking their own children for drug money
Federal agents are working to combat this sick new trend in child s*x trafficking
Warning: This story contains troubling details of child sexual abuse
The FBI is reportedly working to combat a growing trend of parents trafficking their own children in the sex trade to get money to fuel their drug habits.
FBI Special Agent Jeanette Harper says the agency has been tracking this unsettling trend in El Paso, Texas.
"We do see quite a bit where we have parents that are trafficking their children in sexual acts so they can receive drugs off the street," Harper said, according to KFOX14.
“It's just hard that the parents are more concerned about getting drugs and basically torturing their children for the rest of their lives," Harper said, noting the crippling psychological impact such abuse will have on a child. "The person that you should trust the most as your mom and your dad, and they're giving you to people for sex.
She went on to explain that offenders are often using their own homes or cheap motel rooms to sell their children’s bodies.
"If their main goal is to get money for drugs, then they're not going to go to a hotel or a very expensive hotel or Airbnbs," Harper explained.
Local non-profits are working with the FBI to combat human trafficking through spreading awareness and education and by supporting victims. The Center of Hope in El Paso currently has 40 active cases of sex trafficking victims, while others remain waitlisted.
KFOX14 noted that the Center for Hope and the FBI stressed their reliance on individuals reporting cases of possible child sexual abuse to bring offenders to justice.
"There are a lot of legal reporting requirements for individuals that are either teachers, doctors, just caregivers in general," Harper explained. "If they observe their child or they believe that they're a victim of sexual abuse, they are legally required to report that to somebody within 24 to 48 hours."
If this is a trend in El Paso, unfortunately, there’s no doubt it’s a trend elsewhere. This is the kind of depravity that can only come from a culture that has utterly abandoned God and demoted the value of life for every child.
We have a drug epidemic, a sex trafficking epidemic, a porn epidemic, and a child sex abuse epidemic; none of these things are detached from the other, nor from our nation’s wholesale abandonment of justice and basic morality.
Let us pray that in the next four years, we see all of these crises turn around drastically and the value of each individual child, from conception onward, would be upheld and protected.
Pray for these children.