Americans are outraged by the Mark Foley congressional page scandal. They are disgusted by the people on Dateline's ""To Catch a Predator."" Child molesters revolt people, and rightly so. Nothing evokes anger like innocent children being harmed. However, while Mark Foley and these Dateline predators are very visible to Americans because their faces fill newspapers and TV, they certainly are not the only, or even most threatening, cases of child abuse out there.
Before United States citizens become too righteous, they should remember or become aware that child sex-trafficking is a billion-dollar industry around the world. The people who are so scandalized by the Mark Foley incident must realize that if children anywhere, not just in our own country, are being sexually abused, adults everywhere are accountable.
The sex-trafficking of children around the world should be the real scandal. The Mark Foley ruckus would be the perfect opportunity for U.S. citizens to start a dialogue, create awareness, a public movement toward demanding change on this topic.
However, they are too busy being self-righteous and morally superior and following the ensuing political circus.
The media could also use these high-visibility pedophile cases to bring up the whole industry of abuse that is going on throughout the world. Perhaps Americans prefer to sit back and judge rather than be forced to think about the atrocities happening in the world.
The government and the media could be blamed for not caring or raising enough awareness about this horrendous topic. But they are only a mirror of society, reflecting the wants and expectations of the people. People also have to educate themselves. For a society that claims to care so much about children, it seems we only care about American children or do not care enough to learn about children in the rest of the world.
And of all atrocities in the world, this one is certainly at the top of the list. On the UNICEF website, the UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy says, ""Millions of children throughout the world are being bought and sold like chattel and used as sex slaves. This is an utterly intolerable violation of children's rights.""
Though the U.S. government has taken steps to stop child sex-trafficking, such as the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, these measures are vague, and more certainly can be done.
However, it will take pressure from citizens to get them to act. Citizens should demand, through letters, campaigns and even creating buzz, that the U.S. government put pressure on these countries to instate tougher child-protection laws and actually enforce them.
It would be nice if the United States could use its standing as the greatest superpower to make some progress in the world, not just bully other countries around. And this is an area where a little pressure is certainly necessary.
UNICEF also reports that ""the underlying causes of commercial sexual exploitation of children include poverty, gender discrimination, war, organized crime, globalization, greed, traditions and beliefs, family dysfunction, and the drug trade.""
If United States citizens start expecting the government and media to focus on improving the general conditions of developing nations and spreading human rights to all parts of the world, child sex trafficking may diminish.
When we hear about incidents such as the Foley scandal, it is right to want an investigation and demand answers. However, as far as is known, no sexual molestation actually occurred in this situation. If we can get so outraged over even inappropriate instant messages, we should be livid about what is happening in the rest of the world.
All this current momentum that is built up over child predators should now be turned to the rest of the world, so we can help children who aren't so fortunate to have an entire society that looks out for them.
