I’ve seen many people on Social Media with such strong views about what’s going on in today’s world. Everyone seems to believe something different regarding COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, politics, vaccines, and all the conspiracy theories going around.

I do admire the people who are using their platform to speak out on things that are going on in the world, which is something I’m choosing to do more. One of the things I've been particularly interested in is human trafficking, and I'm happy that this topic is getting more attention.

In doing some research I found the following statistics:

▪️In 2020 alone, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children experienced a 90.46% increase in reports of missing and exploited children, compared to the same time frame in 2019. Think about that...that’s almost a 100% increase, and there’s still five more months to go in 2020!

▪️In 2019, the NCMEC assisted with more than 29,000 cases of missing children. These case types were:

▫️91% endangered runaways
▫️4% family abductions
▫️4% critically missing young adults, ages 18 to 20
▫️Less than 1% nonfamily abductions
▫️1%, injured or otherwise missing children

▪️ From the 26,300 runaways reported to NCMEC in 2019, 1 in 6 were likely victims of child sex trafficking. Now think of that number and multiply it by 90...and we have hit the stats for the 1st seven months of 2020. That is an astronomical amount.

Conspiracy theories or not, human trafficking--in particular child exploitation---is happening. Whether you are Republican, Democrat, somewhere in the middle or not political at all, these stats should shock, concern, and horrify you. This is the real pandemic, folks. This is what we should be talking about and what needs attention.

Something is going on that is hurting our kids. We need to pay attention, question and be willing to look deeper into uncomfortable issues. Now is not the time to keep following the masses. Do research for yourself, find out what’s going on & what you can do about it.

We may think our voice doesn’t make a difference, but it does. The more we continue to shine a light on things that are ignored, collectively we can exact change.