Of statistics

I'll be honest – when I joined this group in my class I didn't really care about sexual abuse victims, or consider it to be much of a problem. It's easy to ignore problems that you don't see every day, problems that hide in the dark shadows of society. When I looked at the Genesis Project Seattle website I came across this page of statistics and they gave me pause.

Learning that there are 100's of thousands of victims of domestic sex trafficking really hits home when you start to put some of those statistics into frame in your personal life. I grew up in a small town of barely 40,000 residents. When I think about growing up, when I think about being 13, and living in small town Washington it really becomes concrete to realize that at any one time there are more than three times the population of my home town are trapped in prostitution, many as young as my then 13 year old self.

The impact became even more local when I learned that there were nearly 400 underage prostitutes in Seattle alone. With barely more than 2,000 students attending the North Seattle Community College this means that were these victims lucky enough to be in school and receiving an education, almost 1 in 4 of my classmates would be involved in abusive, sexually predatory relationships.

Being able to look around at a class, and imagine a quarter of my classmates as victims of sex trafficking has made it real for me. It's made me care. I hope that visual helps you care too – if it does please consider supporting The Genesis Project. Visit their take action page and take your action. Learn more about the plight of these victims, and donate or volunteer to help their plight.