Sometimes when I sit in the clinic in between seeing patients, I like to remind myself of my “other life.” Not the girl that still fumbles as she’s learning how to draw blood, but the other side that is a diehard advocate- the girl that felt empowered to empower girls who’d been victimized and sold in some of the harshest conditions. In my mind I took myself back to my time in Italy, and thought of the girls who’d been sent back to Nigeria after being released from their madams who’d coerced them into sexual slavery. Okey and I have been pushing ourselves: “Don’t forget the girls we’re fighting for. Don’t forget we’re working to one day be able to help them.”

Don’t forget.

As I’m caught up in my daze, I mindlessly check cnn online…the 2nd step in my daily internet routine…Check email…check cnn.com…check ajc.com

Just as I was about to close the page, my eye caught the headline, “Children freed, alleged child pimps arrested.” My interest piqued, I clicked the link expecting to read about a case of prostitution somewhere in China or Thailand.

“…recovered 52 children…arrested 60 pimps...the FBI announced.”

Wow…the FBI’s gone global…going overseas tracking down traffickers. Go America.

I skim the article, looking for what country the article was referring to.

No America.

No.

I know this.

I know that the US is battling the surge of sex trafficking and child prostitution in our borders. I read this. I see the numbers. I’ve seen individual victims. But yet somehow…somehow…it didn’t seem real until I saw the article on CNN, or until I heard Robin Meade from CNN’s Morning Express say it the next day on the news.

“…recovery of 900 children…” Wow that many kids rescued in 6 years…

I wonder how many minors or young ladies have been rescued in 6 years in Italy…or Nigeria…or Thailand..or South Africa…?

900 American kids.

I don’t know why this fact floored me like it did. I always was the type of person that adopted the “world” view…America is not the only country doing awesome things…America has its faults…but even in saying that I guess somewhere I didn’t believe it…until I see these facts.

I read on, clicking on a link that took me to the FBI’s Innocence Lost National Initiative page. Apparentsly since 2003, the FBI teamed up with the National Center for Missing Children and the Department of Justice and launched what is now known as the Innocence Lost National Initiative. These initiative involves over 30 police and law enforcement agencies across the country for one reason: to put an end to child trafficking in America.

Wow.

Why didn’t I know this?

I wonder if there are a group of young people in another country who want to be a Making Noise for sex trafficking here…

The FBI is seriously making moves to put an end to it here anyways…

Though my heart has led me overseas to make noise against trafficking, there is a storm brewing at home… the problem is literally in my backyard…literally….Atlanta is one of the leading cities in sex trafficking in the states.

I knew that

But I didn’t know that

I wonder how many of those girls I’ve passed unknowingly in the mall, or driven past in my car on the highway, or looked down at as hoodlums while I drove through dodgy neighborhoods.

Crap…it happens here too….

No I mean it really happens here too.