Pamphlets hope to educate readers about the dangers posed by sex trafficking.
GRAND RAPIDS (WZZM) - "Men in our community are paying to rape children - that's the botom line." That stark assessment from Andy Soper is what brought 100 child advocates to the Salvation Army's Kroc Center Friday.
Soper started the Manasseh Project at Wedgwood Christian Services, where he counsels troubled youths. The Project say it's "dedicated to ending the sexual exploitation of young men and women in West Michigan. Through community education and collaboration, the Manasseh Project provides support for victims of human trafficking and empowers people of West Michigan to end modern day slavery."
Workshops and speeches Friday and Saturday hope to empower and educate people who deal with the victims of human trafficking. Soper says "we see a lot of kids that will come in where their parents have sold them for drugs. Sex trafficking and drug trafficking are very much tied together - I mean it's the same people there's a lot of gang involvement in selling drugs there's a lot of gang involvement in selling humanity."
While Soper concedes it's hard to get a handle on how common an occurrence such sexual exploitation is in west Michigan, federal estimates are there may be nearly 2,400 victims.
"There are so few of these kids compared to say - drugs on the street. It matters because they're children above all else - their innocence and their childhood is being stolen" Soper told WZZM 13's Peter Ross.
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