In The Red

Honestly, I've not always been very socially conscious - especially when it comes to events outside of the United States was I tend to be particularly clueless. So, imagine my shock when I first read about the issue of child sexual exploitation. While this horrific practice exists, to a degree, here in the US, it comes nowhere near what is present in countries like Cambodia, Thailand and India where child brothel owners operate with impunity and oftentimes with the protection of law enforcement. Sadly, it isn't unheard of for parents to prostitute their young children to tourists in full view of others - the problem is that prevalent, that much of the need for secrecy has been removed, leaving the children all the more vulnerable to abuse.

I was first introduced to this issue while reading an issue of Relevant magazine. Stephen Christian, the lead singer of Anberlin (one of my favorite bands) had taken a journey to Calcutta, India in conjunction with an organization called Faceless International. There he toured the redlight districts and experienced firsthand children, oftentimes only 8 or 9 years old, walking the streets and prostituting themselves for a few rupees a night. His words and experience is much too powerful for me to summarize adequately so I am attaching a pdf copy of his article, "In the Red", to the blog site. I hope that you'll take a few minutes to share in his experiences.

The article brought tears to my eyes. Even with my limited imagination could I imagine the pain that these children must suffer, night after night after night. I don't think that there is any crime worse than sexually exploiting a child. There is nothing that strips away a person's hope and dignity more than the act of rape, perverting something that is intended to be sacred and beautiful into an act of utter ugliness and violence. And the impact on a child has to be even worse as it also deprives them of the innocence that makes them so unique and their formative years when they should be allowed to grow and develop naturally. Instead they are learning the harsh realities of exactly how cruel mankind can be to one another. None of this, of course, is of their own free will. These children - not only in India but in coutries across the globe, including the US - are forced into these situations and beat into submitting what for many of them will be a lifetime of abuse. They are lured with offers of jobs so that they can help support their family, they are abuducted off the street and they are sold by their families into that life. Then every night they are raped and pillaged by strangers - 10, 15, 20 a night - and beaten if they aren't cooperative or "good" enough.

I could write so much more about this unspeakable injustice that exists on such a large scale, but for the sake of time I won't. Hopefully, you'll take the opportunity to read that article and maybe do some research of your own - it's a problem that exists because we allow it to and the only way that these children will ever be rescued is for people like you and I to learn of their plight and take up the fight to save them. I'll leave you with a quote from the article that has become one of my favorites: "I don't want to grow immune to a lifestyle where pursuing comforts in life is far more the venture than doing my part to help humanity for the better. Imagine if everyone helped just one person in the advancement of their life. Imagine a world where the West did more than just throw money at the problems of the world and actually got involved in taking care of the innocent." I fear that I am far to easily distracted by the material goods I'm surrounded by, by my job and by my relationships. But more than that, I never want to have to face those children and answer why, in the face of such incredible injustice, I couldn't take the time to become informed about the issue, to volunteer a bit of my time to an organization that fights this crime or to donate a bit of my money to help set them free. If you're interested in joining the abolitionist movement, let me know and I'll try and set you up with some good resources. If you'd like to donate to my fundraising campaign for Love146, click here.

Training Activities:
It was a little painful but I stretched the distance that I had been running by an additional 1.4 miles and put in a total of 4 miles yesterday. The good news is that I shaved about a minute off my 2.6 mile time and was averaging about 7.5 minutes per mile for each of the 4 miles. It's not where I'd like to be but not a bad start.

Yesterday's miles: 4
Month-to-date distance: 14.7
Distance remaining: 85.3