Friendship Baptist Church holds panel discussion on sex trafficking
A historic Atlanta church held a workshop over the weekend aimed at showing the threat sex trafficking poses on Atlanta communities. Aleck Ragsdale reports.Click “listen” to hear the radio story
About 100 people inside Friendship Baptist Church heard Jennifer Swain of the organization Youth Spark explain two things: the problem is real and is happening on city streets.
“There’s no such thing as a child prostitute because those words just don’t go together. The average age of entry into this life is 12-14 years old. Nobody wakes up on their 21st birthday and decides “I’m just gonna go on the corner and start selling myself”. It just doesn’t work like that”.
Representatives from law enforcement and several victim outreach groups participated in the panel discussion. Lloyd Hawk, chairman of Friendship Baptist Church says it can be unsettling to acknowledge something like this is happening in your community.
“This is a topic that’s been hard to discuss. It’s not a toping that people want to talk about. And so I think it’s important that a church take the lead and say this is not only something we can talk about, but something we must talk about”.
The panelists took questions on the legal issues surrounding sex trafficking as well as how to spot children who might be at risk.
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