Vision of Slave Boys in the Dominican Republic

On August 15, 2011, I’m up late and reading my Bible.  I get the following:

Malachi 2:17 – 3-6 – “You have wearied the Lord with your words; yet you say, ‘In what way have we wearied Him?’  In that you say; ‘Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord and He delights in them.‘  Or ‘Where is the God of justice?’ Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me.  And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight.  Behold, He is coming, says the Lord of hosts.

But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like launderers’ soap.  He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons  of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness.

Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasant to the Lord, as in the days of old, as in the former years.

And I will come near you for judgment; I will be a swift witness
Against sorcerers,
Against adulterers,
Against perjurers,
Against those who exploit wage earners and widows and orphans,
And against those who turn away an alien—
Because they do not fear Me, says the Lord of hosts.

For I am the Lord, I do not change.”

What I got out of that was personal yet also prophetic as I had been praying about human trafficking. Earlier that day I had finished “refining” the harsh prophetic word I received on June 25, changing the font and bolding and italicizing the text so that the emphasis was correct and easy to see.

Then, as I started to poke into my Bible more, about 5:00 am,  I got a sense, several times, to put down the Bible, turn off the radio and get into prayer.  I finally put my Bible down and started praying. At first, I prayed in the spirit.

As I prayed, I started to see being on an island.  I’m standing on a mountaintop and I could see a coastal city miles away and to the right.  Below me was all jungle and I can’t see a road.  I can’t figure out how I got up on the mountaintop.

Suddenly I am standing on a path down the mountain in the jungle somewhere (and I have no idea how I got down there.)  I can tell that the vegetation is thick off to the sides of the path but right near the path the trees are somewhat sparse.  I see a young boy, about 12, wearing a tan khaki shirt and a tan brimless cap that looked vaguely like it was a military hat standing on the right hand side of the path.  There is a small clearing behind him and then the thick trees.

What struck me were his eyes.  They were neither friendly nor suspicious but rather flat and very direct.  He was measuring me.  I briefly see another young boy’s face peek out from behind a tree behind the small clearing behind the first boy.  This boy looks terrified, and in a great deal of pain, but he’s gone again in a flash.

Then I’m looking again into the first boy’s eyes and they are so direct.  He’s not trying to tell me anything, he is simply measuring me.

I briefly see another little boy’s face in the trees.  This one is happy and has a wide beautiful smile and dancing, laughing eyes.  Then he is gone.  It wasn’t  the same little boy but a completely different one.

Then I had a brief vision of an adult man beating a young boy (but not right in front of me on that road with the clearing and the solemn young man but a “vision within the vision.”)  I just saw the man with a stick in his hand beating a young boy.

Then I’m back on the path and the solemn boy is looking at me and I hear a voice (that I know is his) say; “they beat them with sticks, you know.”  And I know I’ve been seeing slave children and that the adult man beats them.

Then I know that the young man with the hat and the solemn, measuring eyes has the weight of the younger boys on his heart, he is their protector.

But he has seen so much sorrow that he keeps his emotions under control at all times.  I had a brief flash of the slave kids actually laughing and playing in the woods.  It is their only joy, the camaraderie they have with each other and their occasional play in the jungle.

I hear the words again, “They use sticks and beat them.”  

That’s the end of the vision.

As I came out of the vision, I knew in my spirit that it was the Dominican Republic and that the children are working on a either a cocoa or a coffee plantation (or maybe both, they are often grown together.)  I feel that Jason and I are going to go there and I WILL meet this boy.  I will recognize him but he will also recognize me.

Then I realize that the young man’s measuring eyes I saw in my vision were ALSO the eyes of Christ, measuring my reaction, measuring my heart, measuring my actions.

The boy with Jesus in his eyes was shown to me but HE (Jesus) was showing me the truth.  Jesus was showing me that HE is their protector, not me but that I will be allowed to help.  I am to bring them joy and hope.  I am to help free them and Jesus himself will restore their hearts.

What’s so weird is that I had no idea what the island looks like…I didn’t even know for sure WHERE it was! I only knew it was the other end of the island Haiti is on…and I’d only seen a few pictures during all the news coverage of the Haiti earthquake.

So I decide to look online at some travel photos of the Dominican Republic. I’m scanning Google images and then I just about fell off my bed. I SAW the place in my vision!

The second picture made me start laughing…turns out Mount Isabel de Torres has a replica of the statue of Jesus that overlooks Rio De Janeiro:

Here are the first 3 pictures (the pics with green arrows are the first ones I saw after my vision, the cable car and the full statue (above) I found later to show more than the first pics showed):

Mount Isabel de Torres near Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic…from the top of the mountain top park. Guess how you get up there? Only by cable car, there are no roads!

The night I had the vision, I found one more picture and it was the path where I saw the boys. Mentally flip the picture below to see the path the way I saw it in my vision so that the clearing area is on the right…(and I was standing on the path with the boy on my right IN the clearning):

Then the last thing I did was go looking for a young man who reminded me of the one I’d seen, the one with the measuring eyes. I’ve re-named the picture (below) that I found “my boys” and have used it on a couple of the sites that have to do specifically with coffee and cocoa industry child slave labor. The boy with the stick and the dark shirt has similar eyes…and the stick he is carrying is thinner and smaller (about half the thickness) than the stick I saw the adult man beating the child slaves with.

The Miss and the Former Madam

BY JENNY YUEN, TORONTO SUN
AUGUST 13, 2011

TORONTO – The stench of men still haunts Tania Fiolleau 15 years later as she recalls the first day she worked as a prostitute in downtown Vancouver.  She was 25 in 1996 and escaping an abusive husband who threatened her with a nearly five-year custody battle in court.  She was turned down from Legal Aid during a time when she was staying at a battered women’s shelter with her two sons and had to come up with money to protect herself and her children from “a very obscene future,” she said.

“I remember going home and showering and I couldn’t wash the filth off me,” Fiolleau said.  “I was looking at a paper for employment and I see this ad that says, ‘Female owned and operated, safe work environment, earn up to $1,500 a day.’  I had no clue.”

Tara Teng, a 22-year-old student at Trinity Western University, a Christian school in Langley, B.C., was crowned Miss Canada last January and has vowed to make human trafficking her crusade.  “I found out one of my neighbours in the community down a few houses from me — her daughter was trafficked at 14 years old — and friends of mine that I already knew, they had cousins and sisters that had been trafficked,” Teng said.  “This wasn’t some distant problem anymore.”

She recently traveled to the slums of Thailand and Cambodia, hearing stories from women and young girls who were sold by their families.  “We spent a lot of time in red light districts and some of these bars and brothels and heard their stories,” Teng said.  “They’re from Moldova, thinking they’re accepting a job in Moscow.  They end up in Turkey for three months where they’re being broken in and from there, they go to Thailand.”  These children are being sold as young as three or four years old, she said.
In Canada, average age of victim is around 13.  >> Read full story  (Janet’s note:  Prostitution is legal in Canada.)

Child Slavery on the Island of Hispaniola – Home to Both Haiti and the Dominican Republic

I’ve been researching human trafficking for several years now. The past two years have been the most intense ones since 2007 though. The Lord started poking me in September of 2009 to not only start paying attention to but also blog about natural disasters.  In September of 2009, I started having this strong feeling that something bad was going to happen on either the 27th or the 28th.  It was odd to have been given such specific dates and yet it could have been either one.  Turns out it was both.

Something had shifted in the spiritual realm.  I started feeling like I needed to start doing what He has called me to do with more fervor, more dedication.  The feeling can only be described as the feeling that we’ve now reached the end of the coming “end times.”  That we are running out of time.

I asked other Christians I knew if they were feeling anything like I was.  Imagine my surprise when they all said the same thing.  Now these are not my close circle of church friends so that we all naturally kind of think and feel the same, or are hearing the same sermons.  These were people in different places in the country, with different ministries and I don’t talk to any of them more than 3 or 4 times a year.

The Lord REALLY burdened my heart since the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti and I discovered the facts about the Dominican Republic sex trade on the other side of the island.

How I discovered that was pretty strange. I was actually researching a source for silk powder for some of the cosmetics I make (the “Free” Bath & Beauty line was developed to donate money to human trafficking…plus it’s chemical free and made from all natural ingredients.)

I’d heard something that Pat Robertson had said (that infuriated many, many people) not too long after the quake (so I must have been researching sometime in January of 2010 or maybe early February.) He said that Haitians had dedicated their country to the devil when they’d first gained independence. I looked it up and sure enough, they DID do Voodoo rituals at that time.

Of course, many would argue that Voodoo is not satanic..but they would then get into arguments about whether or not ALL other religions are actually satanic (since Jesus is the only way to the Father) and the fists and fur would fly. Endless controversy there.

But when Robertson made that statement, he said something else as well…something along the lines of “Well, just look at the Dominican Republic on the same island. A prosperous nation with a thriving tourist industry. Same island, different reality. Voodoo is bad news and Haiti has suffered due to their choice to follow that evil religion.”

Along with millions of other Americans, I watched Haiti’s government do virtually nothing to help the devastated people. For the first couple of days, it was understandable…the government buildings were devastated too. I’m sure thousands upon thousands of government workers died.

But then I began to notice that they didn’t seem to work very hard to “get their act together.” In fact, they seemed to not really care about the people’s suffering. I began to wonder about the government in Haiti. I suspected that perhaps they really didn’t care. Some do want power and don’t care how they get it or who they hurt. The leaders in Haiti seemed to fit into that category.

So there I am, researching silk powder and I run across some articles about some government seizing silk plantations from their own people. Somehow, from that research, I end up finding out about the slave labor and child sex trafficking in the Dominican Republic (and no, I have no idea of how I ended up discovering this…silk isn’t grown there so I followed link after link from the original article about some silk growers land being stolen by the government.)

I’m surprised Pat Robertson didn’t catch the sex trafficking / sex tourism trade part of the prosperity (when he commented on the Dominican Republic’s prosperity.) Turns out that the Dominican Republic was listed (as of March of 2010) as the SECOND sex tourist spot in the world. Those in search of hot sex tours flock there in droves. To have sex with children.

I pick my jaw up off the floor and research some more. Yep, little kids are being sold for sex in the Dominican Republic. Not such a stretch to think that maybe the Haitian government turns a blind eye to their stolen people; men, women and children who are forced into some form of slave labor on the opposite end of the island.

The U.S. State Department’s 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report states:

“Reports from various sources in the Dominican Republic and Caribbean indicate that Dominican women and children are subjected to sex trafficking throughout the Dominican Republic, the Caribbean, Europe, South America, the Middle East, and the United States. Additionally, child sex tourism is a problem, particularly in coastal resort areas of the Dominican Republic, with child sex tourists arriving year-round from various developed countries.”

“Recommendations for the Dominican Republic: Vigorously prosecute and punish trafficking offenders, including public officials complicit in forced prostitution or forced labor…”

(Source: The United States Department of State, 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report – Dominican Republic, 27 June 2011)

Hmmmm, I think my instincts were right. Bad government.

Here I am in August of 2011 and researching it again. I’d actually planned to blog about slave children on coffee and cocoa plantations but this came out instead (and as I’m researching today, turns out the Dominican Republic does not produce silk but they do indeed grow both cocoa and coffee so maybe God put me onto this…sometimes I feel like I “take dictation” for God because I’LL have something in mind to write about and the next thing I know, I’m writing something completely different than what I’d intended. Today feels like that.)

In fact, as I’m thinking about this, this is probably the first place in my research that has BOTH a thriving sex tourist trade that traps children into sexual slavery but ALSO has both coffee and cocoa grown there…something God woke me up to just 3 days ago.)

And this is what I started to blog about today…child slavery on coffee and cocoa plantations. So maybe God is leading me to seriously investigate the Dominican Republic. I had a brief vision the other day of my son standing surrounded by smiling brown skinned children and it was so brief and fast that I couldn’t readily identify the culture. Could have been South America but it also could have been somewhere in the Caribbean. Mostly I saw darker skin than Jason’s (he’s very pale) but what stood out the most wasn’t skin color but beautiful wide smiles on everyone’s face.

I know that I have seen something in my son’s future regarding traveling to a place and the children that he meets will be very happy to see him. I’m beginning to suspect, as I type this today, that God may be preparing us to go to the Dominican Republic.

I’ve never even seen a picture of the place but you know how God is! What I see with my spiritual eyes are so much more important than what I see with my eyeballs. His plans and purposes are so much greater than my understanding of them…so I just get in His Holy Spirit jet stream and cruise.

Now I have to find out what God has in mind. I suspect I should dust off our suitcases!

NOTE: The night after I wrote this on August 14, 2011, I had another vision >> read child slave vision post

Is the Village Voice Actually FOR Sex Trafficking of Young Girls in America?

Below is a page that ended up covering a specific controversy regarding an article in the Village Voice over numbers, prostitution ads and those who are actually AGAINST the fight to help the VICTIMS of pimps, pornographers and slavetraders in the sex industry in America.  This writing is very, very, VERY long with lots of writing and lots of links to articles (for that reason, I split it into two sections for easier consumption.)

It is a page for those who want to delve into facts and controversies surrounding teen prostitution in America…and have a few hours to spend (overall) reading the news stories, following the links and doing your own research as well.)  I believe it is important to be fully aware of not only the problem but those who deny it’s existence (and seem to hate those of us who are called to rescue slaves!)

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Please read this introductory section by Janet Byers, 8/13/2011:  After I finished a major overhaul of the site in June and July, I ran across a couple of stories that shocked me.  I had taken the numbers I’ve been reading for years at face value about the numbers of human trafficking victims all over the world and in the U.S.  So I was unprepared to read that some don’t agree with rescue efforts.

One article was about Laura María Agustín, a sociologist who claims that many women from foreign countries who are trafficked for sex into the U.S. actually have NO problem with the debt bondage they are kept in for many years; that they knew exactly what they were getting into before they came here.

She says the “worldwide slavery estimates” are all wrong because of this fact…that these women CHOOSE to be enslaved, beaten and tortured as “part of the deal” of coming to America. She further states that those in the “Rescue” industry view women as weak and powerless…and that is a disservice to their inherent feminist rights.  >> Read the Wikipedia entry here

The other is the Village Voice Media (VVM) story outlined in detail below.  This was the first time I’d read the  controversy regarding the numbers of slaves worldwide and children sex trafficked in the United States (children who are deemed “at risk” vs. those actually being trafficked.)  The detractors say all the hoopla and media attention is ridiculous; that there really isn’t a problem.

Certainly not a big enough problem to warrant big government grants and private donations.  The VVM writer goes so far as to say that the numbers are only purposefully inflated so the crusaders against trafficking can feed like pigs at a limitless trough of generosity and government grants worth billions.  That really all they were trying to do is belly up to the cash cow and “get theirs.”  I was truly stunned.

Then the comments section of the main article showed me that people were falling into a belief that these “child rescue evildoers” were just trying to get a bunch of money and so were fudging the numbers ON PURPOSE.  The Village Voice readers accepted that there isn’t a problem and that it was all just hype and hysteria.  Thousands of Americans will now ignore the problem of sex trafficking of teenagers due to VVM’s biased reporting (and insane math that so badly skews the numbers that most of us simply scratch our heads in wonder.)

Will those readers of these kind of sensationalist stories ever return to a sense of caring about the slaves anywhere in the world?  Highly doubtful.  For this reason, I spent a lot of time showing the statistical errors and highlighting the prejudice and hypocrisy behind the VVM articles that you’ll see below.

BUT THE VILLAGE VOICE WRITER DID MAKE ONE CRITICAL AND CORRECT POINT:  MORE MONEY NEEDS TO BE SPENT ON DIRECT AID AND SHELTERS FOR SEX TRAFFICKED TEENAGERS IN AMERICA!!

And I do agree that touting bad numbers ultimately hurts the cause of freeing sex slaves so I caution those in the fight to be circumspect…otherwise the very children we are trying to rescue will get caught in a crossfire over numbers and not get help they so desperately need!

I’ve also read that efforts to stop child sex trafficking are really just due to a bunch of uptight Christians.

Prudish religious nuts out trying to stop people from having fun sex and placing “legal adult entertainment” ads for prostitution.

HOW these ads are considered legal also leaves me scratching my head…

I believe this is why Craigslist was pressured into shutting down their “adult services” section… prostitution IS illegal in 99.99% of the United States after all!  The few brothels in Nevada really don’t count…and that state is in terrible financial condition so obviously making prostitution legal and taxing it doesn’t help (another thing I read on VVM.)

The internet (which is what Village Voice Media specializes in and where they make a HUGE chunk of money) is EXACTLY where pimps hide trafficked girls and women!

A brothel would NEVER see them even IF prostitution became legal tomorrow everywhere in the United States.  Traffickers will always hide stolen human beings regardless of laws.  WHICH IS EXACTLY WHY IT’S SO HARD TO GET EXACT NUMBERS!!!

The Village Voice attack is clearly fueled by their own greed because they ARE a corporation who IS feeding at the REAL CASH COW of ads promoting an illegal activity (prostitution) and therefore, they are loudly screaming so as not to suffer the same fate as Craigslist.  In fact, they themselves claim they got ALL the business Craigslist lost…and they certainly do NOT want to lose those NEW billions of dollars pouring into their financial pig trough!

Personally, I could care less about what consenting adults do in the bedroom.  But I DO care if even ONE child is forced to have sex with an adult anywhere in the world.  I mean, seriously folks…sex slavery in our own backyard…child sex slaves in America?  NOT acceptable, NOT AT ALL! 

A 2011 TBI (Tennessee Bureau of Investigation) Report on Human Trafficking has actual numbers in recent years in Tennessee and the numbers surprised everyone.  In November of 2010, the FBI rescued 69 children between the ages of 12-17.  And those are only the ones they found. 

Yes, I’m pretty sure the numbers commonly quoted (100,000 – 300,000 at-risk youth in America) really ARE wrong. But 69 kids is too many kids.  ONE child is one too many. 

A thought occurred to me recently and it will be a mantra I repeat over and over to the critics and detractors who want to argue numbers and take the focus off the very REAL problem of trafficked teenage prostitutes in America.  It goes like this:  “How many drunk drivers are ACTUALLY on the road as opposed to those who get arrested?  Many, many, many more than “the statistics” show I’ll bet.  So should we stop funding anti-drunk driving campaigns because the statistics could be skewed?  Hardly!”

Wake up America, our kids ARE both “at risk” AND actually being sold every day!
And all you Christians out there? Double the wake up call!

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Ironic News Stories of the Year!
The Village Voice recently published an article which challenged a statistic often quoted in human trafficking discussions: “100,000 to 300,000 children in the U.S. ‘at risk’ of becoming victims of child sex trafficking.”  Yet the Village Voice made up their own numbers even while viciously attacking studies with high numbers AND the statisticians and celebrities who fight human trafficking.

Here is their quote about how they arrived at the ridiculous number of 827 teenage prostitute arrests per year (see the map they made up at left and at the bottom of the classifieds graphic below; you can click it to go to their “interactive map”):

“Village Voice Media relied predominantly on individual police departments within 37 of the largest cities in the U.S. to furnish us with juvenile prostitution arrest data over the course of the last 10 years. When that wasn’t possible, either because of incomplete records or because a particular department didn’t track the data for that long a period, we used FBI arrest statistics, in addition to various state and county law enforcement agencies.”

So incomplete data gathered in a haphazard and unrealistic fashion is just FINE for the Village Voice…but anyone battling human trafficking who claim much higher numbers are frauds, idiots and money-grubbing do-gooders?  Sheesh.

I mean seriously…incomplete arrest records?  Only arrest records for underage prostitutes?  No info on loitering charges or prostitution arrests of teens where a lesser charge was given as a result of a plea bargain?  And only 37 of the largest cities?

This means, of course, that child sex trafficking only happens in big cities, right?  There is a phrase that was coined in New York in the late 70′s by New York T.V. executives:  “flyover people.”  This is how they started referring to citizens who live anywhere between the east and west coasts…meaning most of America simply does not COUNT for them!

I think Village Voice Media thinks so too.  This famous cover of the New Yorker magazine illustrates their view of middle America very well (you can click on the graphic at left to view a larger size.)

Forget that some the largest rings busted in the last few years have happened in smaller rural towns in middle America.  Towns where the police were understaffed and mostly unaware that the pimps had arrived in their small towns for precisely that reason…the police in small town America simply weren’t looking for pimps hauling young girls around to truck stops and seedy motels in response to internet ads they placed.

Let’s forget about children who the police will NEVER see…kids kept indoors and used over and over for pornographic movies or “kiddie porn.”  And please, let’s also forget that some pimps do NOT let their “girls” out of their sight…that they’re never going to stand on a street corner but instead ARE kept under lock and key and shuttled back and forth to their tricks, johns and appointments.  The only way THESE children and teens will ever be found is if the police bust the PIMPS and discover the girls!

Oh, and one more point.  Let’s also completely forget that a lot of cops in ALL cities, including New York, still refer to crimes involving prostitutes as “NHI crimes.”  NHI stands for ‘No Humans Involved’ by the way.  And I wonder if VVM took into account budgets in large cities…like whether it’s more important to spend money to catch serial killers than to bust teenagers selling sex on the corner?

>> Read the Second Part of the Village Voice Stories About Human Trafficking

Is the Village Voice Actually FOR Sex Trafficking of Young Girls in America? – Part Two

Page Two of the Village Voice Stories About Human Trafficking

(Please view Page One here for context if you’ve landed on this page off the interent.)

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Here is an actual quote and statistic from Children of the Night, a privately funded child prostitute rescue organization in Los Angeles founded by Dr. Lois Lee (pictured at right):

“In 1979, she created Children of the Night and over the next three years more than 250 child prostitutes passed through Lee’s two-bedroom apartment.”

That’s about 84 child prostitutes per year.  In 1979.  In ONE tiny little apartment-turned-shelter in Hollywood…which is ONE small neighborhood in Los Angeles.

The Village Voice says there is an average of 88 teenage prostitute arrests per year in New York City as of 2011.  New York’s population is about twice that of Los Angeles. 

Gee, hmmmm….WHAT is wrong with this picture????  Dr. Lee has rescued more than 10,000 kids since 1979.  Her shelter runs a hotline that gets 10,000 calls per year.

But hey, the Village Voice had a couple of staff members make some phone calls…so we’ll just ignore REAL numbers from a REAL organization who has been on the front lines of the battle for 3 decades, ‘kay?

Yeah, the Village Voice’s numbers are off.  Waaaaay off.

But noooo…they’re not content with attacking the numbers…they had to go and make up their own junk numbers. But the ferocious attacks on those in the fight against human trafficking like CNN’s Amber Lyons? Extremely vicious. Downright hateful, even. Here’s a bit of an article attacking Ms. Lyons and in it, they skew the truth even further:

CNN’s Amber Lyon Ambushed Craigslist — But She Won’t Talk to The Village Voice

CNN leads the media’s mass paranoia over a nonexistent epidemic By Tony Ortega Wednesday, Jul 6 2011

“In cities across America, we are told over and over, like a mantra, that “100,000 to 300,000″ underage sex slaves have been stashed away from public view, with
more joining them every day. It’s a problem growing so quickly that the United
States soon will be no better than Moldova or Nepal in regard to child sex
trafficking. Why go to the Third World looking for this nightmare when our
cities and suburbs are bursting with children in bondage?

“Feel that panic in your chest? Now, step back and take a deep breath.  As  we showed in our cover story last week, the newest panic is like the ones that preceded it—an emotional reaction, based on good intentions, but grounded in bogus information.

The actual data behind this “epidemic” is wanting in the extreme. It involves guesses by activist professors, junk science by nonprofit groups trying to extract money from Congress, and manipulation by religious groups hiding their real agendas about sex work.”

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Gee, I’ve been in this fight myself for years and spent literally HUNDREDS of hours in research. I have never seen anyone — not even once — say that there are ACTUALLY that many young girls “stashed away from public view” and being sold for sex.

ALL the sites I’ve seen, and all the statistics I’ve read, make it CLEAR that these numbers are teenagers ”at risk.”  Period, end of story.

But again, we must remember that VVM makes MILLIONS of dollars a year off their adult sex ads on their newspapers and online ads.  They are the ones with a not-so-hidden agenda (they’re actually trying to hide behind truth and free speech…wish they’d apply that to the illegal ads they run for prostitution everyday in their nationwide network of papers and websites!!!)

When I went to their site to get the above section of the article, I saw this graphic:    So naturally, I clicked on it.  Wow, a whole page of stories, not just the few I’d read!  And, as you can see by the screenshot I took of their “series” exposing the “non-existent epidemic of sex trafficking in the United States, I noticed a theme…discounting the entire problem and attacking all who have used what they term “guesses” and “junk science.”  I can’t help it, an line from Shakespeare went through my head, something about “they doth protest too much.”  I linked both graphics to their site. 

I hate reading this trash but to me, “know thy enemy” is another saying that is true in this instance. While I AM in the fight against teenage sex trafficking, and for the adult women who are in bondage too, I DO want to get my facts straight.  I’m not a liberal, I’m a conservative.  I’m a Christian who has been called by God into this fight.  I GET that I am “the enemy” of the Village Voice…that
they believe people like me are destroying America.  And I’m doing my own share of attacking them on this page. 

But my reason seems more logical to me…I first got mad because they are so vehement in their attacks about the numbers others use being so horrible and WRONG…and then they went and made up their own stupid numbers!!!  Hypocrisy is something all humans deny in themselves while pointing at others they feel are hyprocrites.  BUT THIS IS HYPOCRISY and it irritates me!

And their vicious personal attacks against those who are trying to save ANY young girl being forced to have sex with adult men is WAY beyond the pale.  And as I say many times on this page, I know it’s because of something much less noble for them than “exposing the truth.”  It’s about money, plain and simple.  Greedy hyprocrites.

I’ll make up something here about drunk driving estimates that echoes my mantra on the previous page about estimated drunk driving vs. actual arrests for DUI’s (all the numbers below, with the exception of the 3 million N.Y. number, are REAL 2009 statistics…but the reasoning is just as insane as the Village Voice’s numbers):

“Let’s cut off Federal funding for drunk driving arrests in New York state because in
2009 there were 39,063 drunk driving arrests in that state, 33,808 deaths nationwide and the government estimates that 30.2 million drivers in the United States drove drunk at least once during 2009.  Obviously, if you do percentage estimates, this means New York has the lion’s share of the problem in the U.S. so the Feds should cut off any funds they give them because New York probably actually has AT LEAST three million drunk drivers on the road who DIDN’T get arrested.  Because this is obviously a New York STATE problem, it’s not something other states should have to fund…so cut OFF Federal funds!”

Bet you a million dollars VVM would completely FLIP OUT and say it’s a least TEN million or something and that the Feds should actually triple the funding because they weren’t really taking into account the danger to the average New Yorker and the horrible congestion of traffic in Manhattan or something! 

So who IS Village Voice Media?  VVM is a New York based network of alternative papers and online websites.  They make a MASSIVE profit running ads that blatantly promote prostitution.  See their OWN count of how many “adult entertainment” ads they run each week in their classified ads section –  10,789 to be exact — as shown in the screen shot at right. That was just in Seattle on 7/10/2011.  On 8/13 we revisited the story and saw the number in New York:  60,930 adult ads (compared to 1,538 job ads.)

The following article is one found on Village Voice Media’s ‘Seattle Weekly Blog.’  Their headline reads: “Seattle Ranked Worst City in U.S. for Child Prostitution for Third Year in a Row” (Curtis Cartier, Nov. 8, 2010)  >>Read article here

Seems like they deplore this sad fact, right? Wrong.  The FACT is, without prostitution ads, they’d most likely go out of business!

Now look at the Seattle Weekly “Adult Entertainment” ads here (warning: not for the faint hearted or easily offended BUT if you look at just a few, you should be sufficiently annoyed to sign the petition to boycott Village Voice Media below!  If NOTHING else, they are blatantly and openly promoting prostitution!!) 

Luckily Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn is fighting back:  “Mayor Orders City to Stop Ads with Seattle Weekly” (Casey McNerthney, Seattle PI, July 8, 2011) AND he’s a fan of Ashton Kutcher  >>Read full story

Ummmm, isn’t prostitution still illegal in most places in the USA, even for adults?  What kind of escort does an “around town” job on an “in-call” basis?  (See, I thought being an escort means accompanying someone ”around town” to social events and the like…how silly of me.)  These ads don’t even TRY to hide the truth!

Village Voice Media says they are actively working against child trafficking and they screen their ads carefully.  Somehow, I don’t believe them after looking at the sheer VOLUME of adult ads and their financial reasons to turn a blind eye.  My opinion of VVM was not improved by reading this article on Change.org (warning, you’ll get even more annoyed…)

Kirchner vs. Kutcher

Which one will win?  The good news is…BOTH!  Awareness spread like wildfire after Kutcher’s “Twitter War” and Kirchner has made an entire COUNTRY say “No more!”  Yesss!!!

Argentina’s President Kirchner signed a bill banning classified sex ads and Ashton Kutcher is apparently calling for an advertising boycott of Backpage.com for the same reason.  He had a much publicized “Twitter War” with Village Voice Media (VVM), the owners of Backpage, Seattle Weekly (and a whole bunch of other alternative weekly newspapers.)

Reportedly, VVM”s revenues went up to the tune of MILLIONS of dollars once Craigslist was pressured into stopping THEIR adult sex section (which had an estimated revenue of $36 MILLION per year.)  Take another look at the screenshots above of the number of adult entertainment ads currently being run on their websites for Seattle and New York.  Count the “normal” ads and then count the “adult” ads.

Big BUCK$.  Maybe this is really why VVM is attacking those engaged in the fight against internet sex trafficking so harshly?  Just maybe?  Yeah.  BIG Buck$$$!! (Now look at the number of papers they have listed below and do the math. Big, big, BIG BUCKS!!!)

Argentina Bans Classified Ads Offering Sex by Brian Byrnes, July 8, 2011

BUENOS AIRES – Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner signed a presidential decree Tuesday that bans classified ads that offer sexual services in Argentine newspapers. The decree, number 936, entered the Argentine Official Bulletin and became law on Wednesday.  >>Read full story and view video

Are You Ready to Boycott Village Voice Media?
Hopefully you’re now so annoyed that you’ll Sign the Petition to Boycott Village Voice Media! It’s a small thing but enough small things add up…take pennies, for example.  Even if you don’t want to sign the petition, you can still stop advertising in their papers or reading their papers (and, of course, spreading the word via social media, blogs, etc.)  Promoting prostitution, let alone underage girls, is certainly reason enough!

Village Voice Media’s Papers to Boycott

New York Village Voice	Broward/Palm Beach New Times	Miami New Times	Seattle Weekly	LA Weekly	OC Weekly	SF Weekly
Denver Westword	Minneapolis City Pages	St. Louis RFT	Phoenix New Times	Houston Press	Dallas Observer

Georgia’s New Human Trafficking Law Put to Test

WSBTV News,  August 12, 2011

HARALSON COUNTY, GA — Haralson County authorities said a recent traffic stop along Interstate 20 has turned into a first-of-its-kind test of Georgia’s new human trafficking law.  Two Texas men face human trafficking charges after deputies found 10 suspected illegal immigrants riding in the back of their SUV.  Frank Vasquez and his brother Jessie said they were paid $50 a head to drive the group from Houston to a drop house in Atlanta.  >> Read full story and watch video

Missing Tennessee Teen Found in Georgia Being Prostituted

By Marcus K. Garner, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A missing Nashville teen was rescued from a an Atlanta area human trafficking and prostitution network, and one man was arrested during the investigation, authorities said. >> Read full article

>> View 2011 TBI Report on Human Trafficking

Alexandria MS-13 Member Receives 10 Years for Sex Trafficking of Juveniles

U.S. Attorney’s Office, July 01, 2011

ALEXANDRIA, VA—Alexander Rivas, a/k/a “Casper,” 19, of Alexandria, Va., was sentenced today to 120 months in prison, followed by five years of supervised release, for the sex trafficking of two juvenile females. As an outcome of today’s sentence, Rivas will also be required to register as a sex offender in whatever community he resides.

Rivas not only recruited the two victims, but also secured the prostitution clients, provided the prostitutes with condoms, negotiated the prostitution fees, and orchestrated the prostitution appointments. The majority of the prostitution activity took place throughout Northern Virginia, including the cities and municipalities of Woodbridge, Fairfax, and Alexandria. >> Read full article

US Expands List of Human Trafficking Violators

by David Gollust, State Department, June 27, 2011

The State Department’s annual report on trafficking, the 11th issued by the State Department under an anti-trafficking law approved by Congress in 2000, lists several chronic human rights violators as Tier 3 countries.  At Hillary Clinton’s insistence, the report for the second year in a row assessed human trafficking in the United States, which, like most advanced economies, is placed in Tier 1 with effective laws and enforcement efforts.

But it says the United States remains a source, transit and destination county for men, women and children subjected to forced labor, debt bondage and sex trafficking. It says human traffickers have exploited U.S. visa programs that allow in temporary workers, ostensibly for working in landscaping, farming and tourism industries.  >> Read full article

Prophetic Word About Human Trafficking

The following prophetic word is harsh and came through me so fast that I had to close my eyes to type the last portion because it was coming like a flood.  I didn’t really even “hear” the last portion as I was typing it, I simply closed my eyes and let my fingers fly. It was actually pretty strange because God hasn’t ever done anything to me quite like this regarding prophecy and knowledge.

I’ve certainly gotten words of knowledge for many, many years and those are very familiar. I’ve written many times where I knew God was “writing through me” but He’s never gone into the first person like He does in this word.

I usually tell someone “God said thus and such” or “this is coming through me not from me” but never the “I AM” statements in a “thus saith the Lord” fashion!

I’ve heard plenty of others do it but it isn’t how God has worked in my life in the past. New season and new preparation for the new level He’s taking me to regarding human trafficking I guess!

This IS a prophetic word, a hard word, a word aimed at the heart of complacency in the American church and the lip service that is paid about the horrors of human trafficking — while those who pay that service do not lift a finger to help.

God also showed me that men in the church who have pornography addictions are actually in league with slavetraders, pimps and traffickers.  I’m pretty darn sure THAT will not go over real well during a speech when I do speaking engagements.  A lot of uncomfortable shifting will occur in the seats and some will get up and walk out.

Read the word and you decide…and I know that the word IS NOT only about human trafficking but about those in the church who do absolutely NOTHING to help the poor, the broken, the depressed, the homeless, the young kids in street gangs, the drug addicts, the drunks, the spouse batterers, the battered women, the prostitutes…the hurting humans all around us…AND those in the ACTUAL chains of human trafficking. There is NO logical reason for sex trafficking of American teens to be happening…blocks from churches and ministries.

HOW have we come to this as a church…as a nation? How have we allowed complacency to so deaden the cries of the suffering that Jesus came to save? Have we decided that “those people” deserve what they get for their bad choices? If that is the case, then we ALL deserve to die in our sins. Every single one of us.

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Prophetic Word Against Human Trafficking – Given 6/25/11

Bible studay that morning:  For my son Jason it was Jeremiah 34:8-22 – Dealing treacherously with slaves.  For me it was Isaiah 1:15 – 20 – God hates our false religion and calls us to seek justice for the oppressed. The first paragraph is more commentary based on what Jason and I had discussed during our Bible study. 

Then God took over and finished it for me and that is indicated by the start of the italicized text and quotation marks.

God will NOT hear our prayers or answer us until we step up as Christians against the evils in the land, unless we raise our voices, voices full of rage and fury, at the injustice and evil of human trafficking AND the moral filth and perversion that has overtaken this society…while the majority of the church either 1) does NOTHING about, or worse, 2) stays silent. God will not bless us; He will revoke His financial blessings; He will give us over to the sword, to suffering, to famine if we continue to rebel.

America’s Christians are not seeking justice for the oppressed and this angers the Lord. He is even angrier that some have been called to help, have done “a little” to help but then have turned away to the next and nearest pleasure for themselves; have found a “new” cause to make themselves look good in the eyes of others. This is pride and not true justice; not true service.

“God will not be mocked; He sees how we spend our time; spend our money and He sees that we do NOT spend ourselves for the sake of the oppressed, the slaves, the fatherless children, the young girls, the stolen women.

The next part was directly from the Lord and came fast and strong in my head.  I had to close my eyes and type by touch as the words poured forth; God simply took over my mind AND my hands on the keyboard:

“How many women have had to watch their own husbands murdered before their eyes; becoming the widows the Word speaks of?

“How many have had their children stolen? How many children have been sold by their own families, becoming orphans; becoming fatherless; becoming slaves to evildoers? How many souls are being murdered every day through being a slave?

“How can you stay blind? Why do you resist and rebel against what you know is right?

“I AM ANGRY, says the Lord. I will not hear the prayers of the self righteous, the self absorbed, the self seeking who claim my name yet refuse to do my work. You are self-condemned.

“I will bring you low, I will let you eat your pride and eat from the sorrows of injustice. I will make you cry the tears of the slaves that you will not help.

“Your Sunday services do not impress me. Your new outfit does not impress me. Your hastily written checks dropped into the offering plate do not impress me. You do that for others to see. You write a check so that you can gain a tax refund and so the leaders of the church are impressed with you.

“You do not care about the broken, suffering people all around the world. You are fat and lazy and corrupt and evil in my sight. I do not care that you “do what the Bible says”…I care about your heart attitude. Do not do these things to impress others or to try to impress me.

I KNOW YOUR HEART.

“You lust, you relish evil, you gossip, you gaze at your own reflection, and are pleased. You are wretched, poor, blind and naked.

“But you are not pitiful to me; you are children of the devil.

“Do what is right! Stop the evil in your midst! Wash your prideful hearts, wash your minds; wash the filth and stink and stench of society from your midst.

“How can you let the evil rule your land? The land that I have blessed; the land that I called forth to be my namesake, to be my righteousness throughout the earth?

“I did not give you wealth to squander upon yourselves with fancy cars and fancy clothes and empty acts of piety. I gave you wealth to spread to others, to work my justice, to help the poor and oppressed.

“My razor sharp sword of justice is at the neck of America.”

You are warned.