Foster children are the voiceless children in America. They are the ones we have failed.  As I talk to adults who lived in foster care as children and as I look in the eyes of children pulled from one home to another, I wonder why we can’t heal the children needing to be healed.

I read statistics of sex trafficking in the United States. 300,000 children in the United States alone are trafficked for child prostitution. 70% of them are from foster care or have been in foster care before running away. Some of them are trafficked by foster parents and most of them have been sexually abused as children.

Many of them are ages 11-14 – the popular age of a child for sale for sexual pleasure in America.  The land of the free and opportunity.

We have failed these children.

I look into the eyes of children I work with in a public school. Children ages 10-13. Children with secrets they have learned to keep for survival.  I see the eyes of children who walked through the shelter I worked at, whose mothers go from one abusive relationship to another – will they be the ones?

What is wrong to me is the silence. The silence children learn to keep in order to survive. The silence from God’s people choosing to believe this doesn’t happen here. The silence in the courts and mental health agencies who service the children. The silence in addressing the age-old acceptance that men will be men, they can do what they want, and that women and children are for their pleasure – to be seen and not heard.

I read stories of victims in America. Their perpetrators are doctors, lawyers, businessmen among many. As I travel interstates and see Lion’s Dens advertised in bright lights, I wonder what children are now the trinkets offered in the den of men who steal a child’s life.

In the Church, there’s outrage over gay marriage. Really? No one is a victim in that equation. Men using women and children as objects for their sexual perversion isn’t discussed in the media, over the pulpit or in private conversations in the faith community.

Children are to be seen and not heard.

300,000 children in the United States are trafficked for sexual exploitation. Who are the men they service – 10-15 a night? Who are these 3,000,000 men (and counting)?

Do you know who they are? Where have we evolved that this is accepted? When have we sold our souls for the perverse pleasures of the flesh? Where are men holding other men accountable? We cry and scream about aborted children – but what about the living who live an earthly hell?

I don’t have the answers. I believe ignorance is not the answer. I believe voicing a cry for the voiceless is always a place to start. I believe accepting that this can and is happening in our communities is a start.  I believe being a kind and compassionate adult in the lives of lost children is a step. I believe teaching my sons to honor women and to have sexual integrity is important. I believe calling the church out of the darkness of comfort to be light in the darkness is appropriate.

I believe praying for the voiceless is acceptable. I don’t know which children I see each day will be one of these kids.  But I know as I cry out to God for those who are crying out, He hears and answers those prayers.

Abortion and gay marriage is not the issue for the Church in 2013. Sexual perversion with children is.  Who will be their voice?

What are you willing to do?