Here are the latest articles about Born to Fly. Click the link at the end of each excerpt to read the complete article.

Can We Put a Dent in the World’s Child-Trafficking Industry?

It was early evening in Mumbai, India, as a guide quietly drove journalist Diana Scimone down a crowded street. This wasn’t your usual tourist destination. It was Falkland Road, Mumbai’s notorious red-light district.

“The doorway of every building was packed with young women waiting for customers,” recalls Scimone, who writes frequently about human and religious rights. “Every woman had the same look on her face: hopelessness and shame.”

Scimone’s guide, whose ministry reaches out to prostitutes, pointed at something barely visible in an open window on a second floor. “See that?” he asked. “Those are the cages that hold little girls smuggled from Nepal.”

Horrified, Scimone learned that the caged girls—some as young as 5 years old—are raped and tortured...until they no longer have a will to resist. Only then are they ready to become child sex slaves. Click here to read rest of article.

Girls Are Not For Sale

During the time it takes to read the next few paragraphs—about 30 seconds—another child will be trafficked for sex somewhere in the world.

This little girl—or boy—will be sold to a brothel where she will be raped five, 10 or 15 times a night, by different men, night after night after night. Without rescue, she will have to endure this horror until she dies, probably from AIDS.

Each year 1 million children join the ranks of those living this nightmare—being bought and sold like farm animals. Child sexual trafficking is a multibillion-dollar industry, and it’s growing.

Can anything be done about this, or are we powerless against it? Journalist and child advocate Diana Scimone recently traveled to Thailand to find out. Click here to read rest of article.

How Much Is a Little Girl Worth?

The fans whirled above our heads as we sat around a bamboo table in a safe house in northern Thailand. We were just a few miles from the border with Myanmar (Burma). As I talked and played games with eight little girls—many of whom had come across that border illegally—it was difficult to imagine the life from which they had been rescued. Here, they were safe and secure, cared for by loving houseparents who helped them heal from the traumas they had endured.

Their home, a gated compound of three houses, is situated on a lonely dirt road outside of town. The remote location and security are necessary because these girls are still property in the eyes of the men and women who once owned them. If the girls are ever found out, the traffickers who paid good money for them could forcibly reclaim their “investments.”

How much is a little girl worth? To a child sex trafficker, about $300. That’s what he’ll pay to buy her, knowing he’ll recoup his money and more—if she doesn’t die of AIDS first.

Welcome to the appalling world of child sex trafficking. Click here to read rest of article.

The World’s Third-Largest Illegal Trade (and how we can stop it)

As a journalist I’ve seen a lot. I’ve been to a refugee camp in Sudan, an orphanage overflowing with “throw-away” kids in China, and a home for AIDS orphans in Zimbabwe. Nothing, however, prepared me for what I saw in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India: cages that held little girls—some as young as 5 years old—smuggled in from Nepal.

That’s when I first learned about the global child sex trade and began to write about it. On that trip I interviewed a young teenager whose boyfriend had drugged her and sold her to a madam.

The stories did not get prettier. In Pattaya, Thailand, I remember a banner hanging over an intersection in the red-light district proclaiming this was “boys town.” In most areas where child sex slavery flourishes, girls are for sale, but this particular area specialized in young boys.

I’ve stood at border crossings into Cambodia and Myanmar, knowing that children were trafficked across the border along with cattle, chickens, and rice.

The real shock was to learn that child trafficking is not just across the globe but also across the street. The problem has grown so bad in my own city of Orlando, Florida, that we now have a human trafficking coalition as well as a prayer group that focuses specifically on the problem.  Click here to read rest of article.

¿Podemos Poner Una Mella en el Mundo de la Industria de la Trata de Niños?

Era tarde en Bombay, India, como una guía silenciosamente llevó periodista Diana Scimone en una concurrida calle. Esto no era su destino turístico habitual. Se Falkland Road, Bombay la famosa luz roja del distrito.

“La puerta de cada edificio estaba lleno de mujeres jóvenes de espera para los clientes”, recuerda Scimone, que escribe con frecuencia acerca de humanos y los derechos religiosos. “Toda mujer tiene la misma mirada en su cara: la desesperanza y la vergüenza.”

Scimone la guía, cuyo ministerio se extiende a las prostitutas, se refirió a algo que apenas visible en una ventana abierta en un segundo piso. “Ver que?” pregunta. “Esas son las jaulas que mantienen las niñas objeto de tráfico de Nepal.”

Horrorizado, Scimone se enteró de que la jaula niñas-algunos tan jóvenes como 5 años-son violadas y torturadas… hasta que ya no tienen la voluntad de resistir. Sólo entonces están preparados para convertirse en esclavas sexuales de niños. Click here to read rest of article.

Las Niñas No Están a la Venta

Durante los minutos que tome leer los siguientes párrafos, es posible que otro niño haya caído en las garras del tráfico de sexo en algún lugar del mundo.

Tanto niños como niñas, son vendidos a burdeles, donde son violados cinco, diez o hasta quince veces en una noche, por diferentes hombres, noche tras noche. Sin socorro alguno, tendrá que soportar ese horror hasta que mueran, y, posiblemente muera de SIDA.

Cada año, cerca de un millón de niños entra al mundo de quienes viven esa pesadilla, al ser vendidos como animales a una granja. El tráfico de sexo infantil es una industria multimillonaria, y sigue creciendo.

¿Acaso habrá algo que pueda hacerse o somos impotentes ante la situación? Diana Scimone, periodista y defensora de los niños, viajó hace poco a Tailandia. A continuación, leerá el recuento de su estadía. Click here to read rest of article.