Spotlight on.....

What I'm really focused on right now is human trafficking, particularly in the context of the child sex trade, and, more importantly, how we can stop it.  I've recently returned from atrip to Cambodia and Thailand, where everything I thought I knew about human trafficking quite literally went out the window.

Ever wonder how a mom could sell her child? Check out a book on the Killing Fields. As late as 1979, seeing your child in a brothel or being trained as a child soldier was a heck of a lot better than seeing her get smashed up against a tree to take care of what amounted to another mouth to feed in a Communist regime, without wasting any ammunition. There's a generation of Cambodians who are still so in survival mode, that I'm not sure we're in any position to condemn them wholesale. Not to say it's okay, just to point out that the child sex trade in Cambodia, specifically, could be a symptom of a deeper problem.

By the way, for those of you who labor under the illusion, as I did, that Western pedophiles comprise the larger customer base, not so much. There are cultural, superstitious underpinnings to the concept of virginity sale. Let's be honest; there are plenty of Western pedophiles roaming the streets of Phnom Penh. My friends and I managed to irritate more than one, but these are stories for another day.

You get the idea of where I'm going, though.....