Amidst a current news climate that is running rampant with stories about the death of the world’s most famous feline, Grumpy Cat, and a Miller Park Zoo flamingo, I couldn’t help but question, “Where have those same incessant cries for the exploitation of humanity gone?”
While the lives of animals are inarguably important, why are we as humans — and more importantly — as Christians, not raising a [ruckus] over the gross injustice against our own, particularly our children?
In 2017, at a Variety’s Power of Women event in New York, actress Blake Lively gave a riveting speech to ensure we will NEVER forget just that — and I think it’s worth revisiting today.
Lively opened her emotional presentation on behalf of the Child Rescue Coalition in asking, “What is the value of a single child’s life, and what is the value of a child’s life who isn’t our own?” After admitting that she would die for her own two daughters “without a moment’s thought,” Lively challenged the audience to introspect and really decide what the life of just one child is worth.
The actress then pointed to a map covered in red dots, explaining that each of those dots represented a pedophile trading child pornography in real time.
“The sexual exploitation of children is something that isn’t happening rarely, it isn’t happening worlds away,” said Lively. “It’s happening right here right now.”
While frightened to dive into the painful details of what child pornography entails, the child advocate felt it was her duty as a privileged voice to do so:
“I didn’t really know what child pornography was. I was afraid to ask what it was, as a mother, because it would be painful to hear. But I felt I had to ask, and I wanted to share with you. It is the truth, and I believe if we all knew this, we would dedicate much more of ourselves to stopping it.”
Through her research, Lively discovered the horrifying truth that brought her to tears on stage. When asking an expert [on] how young the victims of these abusers were, the answer shook her to her very core.
“Infants… with the umbilical cord still attached,” she revealed, shaking with the weight of this gruesome reality.
“Unspeakable things happen, but I’m again going to speak about them because I feel like if these kids are experiencing this, the least that they deserve is for us to hear what is actually happening to them,” she continued.
“No it is not just touching, there’s penetration. There is extreme torture and bondage. There’s bestiality which is having an animal penetrate the child or infant. There’s incest. Anything you can think of, it’s out there and it’s being traded. And there are 30 to 50 million files a day being traded that we know of.”
Lively went on to explain the incredible job that the Child Rescue Coalition has done in thwarting the crimes of these child abusers:
“This is so prevalent and I want you guys to know this and I want it to resonate with you, and I want you to see that the Child Rescue Coalition in just 3 years has found 9,000 predators. So far, they have saved 2,000 children.”
Listen to the rest of Blake Lively’s urgent message regarding the prevalence of child pornography below.
Educate yourself, spread the word to others, and learn how you can be a part of effecting change by supporting the Child Rescue Coalition today.
