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Beautiful, scenic Fiji is a well-known tourist destination, but its young women have sadly become a part of its international appeal. Sex tourists’ demand for younger children is increasing, along with the threat to vulnerable children, such as those born to trafficked mothers.

I learned of a local predator. He’s 72, and he lives on a yacht. Hanging out in front of a local restaurant, in a town filled with tourists, he spotted a 14-year-old school girl and struck up a conversation with her. She had little knowledge of the world but knew this kind old man couldn’t be dangerous, plus she liked the attention. Within a few days he had befriended her and invited her to his yacht. Her life was forever changed after what he did to her that day. She never returned to school.

He would bring other young girls to the yacht for himself and his friends; some would sail away on yachts, never to return; some would just be used, pictures taken, and then they would be returned to the island.

After a period of time, she would be taken to towns on the islands and was asked to go get younger girls for him. When I met her she was resistant to doing any more recruiting for him but wasn’t sure what he would do if she didn’t. He is rich, and she knows the police would let him sail away for the right price. The laws are weak in Fiji, and a girl is considered to be at fault in most cases of sexual misconduct or crimes. There is little justice for those commercially sexually exploiting a children like her.

She had brought one girl out to the yacht, saw her given to the man in a nearby boat — then later saw the girl floating in the water face down. She didn’t want to die.

One of the young ladies at the Homes of Hope Fiji arranged for me to meet girls she knew who were forced into prostitution and pornography. The girl I’ve just described was one of those girls. That discussion made it clear that all had pictures taken of them nude — and that the traffickers of children for commercial sex and porn are active in Fiji. Porn is sent so easily on-line from yachts docked at exotic places, equipped with the latest technology.

The girls at the Homes of Hope verify the victimization of these children at the hand of the European, Australian, and American porn industry.

The Road to Recovery
The agony a child goes through in this kind of nightmare experience must be addressed -- and it must be addressed in a place of safety and security, a place of love and care.

Shared Hope will continue to be that place of safety for girls around the world. We are committed to the daily needs of food, shelter, and education, but more importantly to the full restoration of these beautiful lives.

Over the course of the coming years, Shared Hope will expand the Fiji Homes of Hope to care for more than 200 lives, with a preschool and grade school in addition to various businesses, where women can gain business training and skills.

This is how Shared Hope International is working to restore precious lives in Fiji.

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We roll out our activities beginning Friday, November 10 from 2:30 to 5:00pm with a special invitation to tour the U.S. Capitol, in honor of our veterans. Guests will have the opportunity to go into areas that are only accessible to current and former members of Congress.

At 7 p.m. that evening, there will be a welcome reception hosted by Shared Hope’s Founder, the Honorable Linda Smith Congresswoman representing the state of Washington.

The weekends’ activities swing into full gear the next morning. The program will run from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and will feature in-depth updates on the ministry, footage of an undercover raid and rescue of a 14-year-old girl from Jamaica, celebrations of the groundbreaking expansion of our Village of Hope in Fiji and presentations on how sexual slavery is sweeping across our nation – exploiting children as young as 12-years of age.

Building Expansion in Fiji

At 2:45 p.m. we will treat our guests to a bus tour of Washington, D.C. The scheduled sight-seeing will include a tour of our nation’s capitol’s most famous and interesting landmarks and attractions, including sites honoring branches of our military and the men and women who have served our country.

We’ll begin Sunday with an 8 a.m. continental breakfast followed by a time of prayer for our partners that so many of the Shared Hope Family have invested in over the years.

The Sharing the Hope Weekend will be hosted at the Hyatt in downtown Arlington, VA – just across the Potomac River from the Nation’s Capitol.

This weekend is a celebration of freedom with committed friends like you. We look forward to sharing all that we have accomplished with God’s grace over this past year.

Click here to register for the Sharing the Hope 2006 Weekend

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This massive joint effort was called The Report from the U.S. Mid-Term Review on the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in America, and was a collaboration of Shared Hope International, ECPAT-USA, and the Protection Project of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.  

Shared Hope International along with its partners, presented the report’s findings to Congress (and a standing-room only audience) for the first time on September 27, 2006. Representative Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ), Co-Chairman along with other Congressional members of the U.S. Helsinki Commission graciously heard our presenters and viewed video footage obtained by Shared Hope International demonstrating how children are marketed and bought in the commercial sex industry.

The hearing concluded with Representative Smith asking the panel to recommend appropriate legislation to stop this savage treatment of children.

The report contains key findings and next steps derived from the recent nation-wide review of government and civil society programs designed to combat the commercial sexual exploitation of children.

The report found that although national efforts to fight commercial sexual exploitation of children have increased since 2001 through development of laws and programs, the U.S. must take additional next steps to stem the growth of child pornography, child prostitution, child trafficking and child sex tourism, focusing on the shifting trends of exploitation and changing role of technology in these crimes. These areas include:

1. The increased demand for sexual services of children
2. Child pornography as a growing problem in the U.S.
3. The lack of resources to aid exploited and at-risk children
4. The need for cooperation between civil society and law enforcement, and
5. The need for further development of legislation to curb the commercial sexual exploitation of children.

Additionally, the hearing provided momentum in the lead up to the December 2006 Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Ministerial Council in Brussels, Belgium. At this meeting, the Foreign Ministers of the 56 participating States will consider a Belgian, French and U.S.-proposed initiative designed to promote greater attention to the protection of children's' rights, and strengthen legal provisions to combat child pornography.

The report will also be submitted to the Third World Congress on the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children to be held in 2007. For more information please visit the CSEC Mid-Term Review website at www.csecmtrusa.com.

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Create the buzz, make it free and you’ll get results. Online porn pushers have not only adopted but nearly perfected the ‘get it for free’ approach to marketing porn to us via the Internet. It starts with spam emails to a massive population with click-through to web sites with sultry images. The images promise more, driving us to subscriptions, downloads and online ordering. They know that if they get the buzz going in you and me, we are statistically sure to open our wallets for more. You click, I click, they get paid. Our buzz puts cash in their accounts and fuels their economic growth. One out of five pornographic images are of a minor, a child, somebody’s daughter…or son. Start clicking and you will be a consumer of child porn. Kids are destroyed, you go to jail, they get paid. Stop supporting an industry that sells us and our kids for a buzz.

Strength & Honor,
Mark Morse

This has been an excerpt form the October 2006 Defenders newsletter. The Defenders is a network of men committed to defending themselves, their children and their families against the harms of the commercial sex industry. For more information on The Defenders or to sign up for a newsletter, visit www.thedefendersusa.org