Children are our most precious treasures...
And too often we let them down. We have a responsibility to not only those in our families, but all children. They rely on adults to provide for them.
When you wonder about the choices, anger, aggression, or frailty displayed in adults around you, consider the factors of childhood that lead to these traits. Children need safety, nutrition, an environment that encourages exploration, and — if not love — at the very least, caring consideration to survive.
Society has created a lot of monsters. The trauma subjected onto children have far reaching and long-lasting impacts. We must break these cycles. This drives Ross and I to donate and promote organizations that support and protect children and their childhoods.
There are approx. 300,000 sex-trafficked children in the U.S. at any given time. More than 87% of active sex trafficking cases (2018) used online sites and apps, and 42.5% of sex trafficking victims in those cases were recruited online.*
I know many people find it hard to decide where they should donate money. There are so many causes and organizations doing great work. Some groups work directly with people in need. Some organizations move higher up the chain to solve a problem or prevent a greater number of people falling into the painful situations. At this point, both segments need our help.
Thorn is an organization attacking the problem of child trafficking with a multi-pronged approached. This insidious problem is intrenched in technology, secrecy, societal taboos, mental health issues, legal loopholes, unstable home environments, and underfunded social and law enforcement budgets. I appreciate Thorn’s approach of big picture, scalable approach addressing these issues.
I get annoyed with messaging for charitable and political fundraising that tells me nothing about the cause, ideals or purpose asking for the money. Thorn, as an organization, does so much better than that. I receive information about their mission, their successes, and the horrible issues they are combating. They do it so well, I’m going to provide the following directly lifted from one of their emails.
Do you ever wonder what your gift actually does? When you give, you make a direct impact on our work to:
- Provide tech companies with research and tools to fight child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and grooming on their platforms.
- Build technology to help law enforcement identify victims and bring them to safety.
- Help parents understand the risks present in digital spaces and how to mitigate them while equipping them with the tools, support, and confidence they need to have productive conversations and keep their kids safe online.
- Engage youth in conversations with one another about how to navigate digital spaces safely.
…and so much more. Together, we’ve already identified over 24,000 children, and found more than one million child sexual abuse material files online. That’s progress — but we have much further to go to build the world we all believe in: one in which every child has the chance to simply be a kid.
Charitable giving can address the short term, emergency needs; giving to Thorn will help us invest in the long-term prevention of child trafficking, while also addressing the immediacy for impact.
Ross and I are giving all proceeds from our book Moral Code to the prevention of child abuse and trafficking. Until someone creates the technology in Moral Code’s sci-fi world to fight these issues, we’ll have to rely on organizations like Thorn and Prevent Child Abuse America. We thank them for their efforts.
*source: Shattered Dreams film, a short documentary by Mona Urban and Bill Wisneski.
