Atlanta is routinely renowned as the capital of the south and home to civil rights and black political icons. Now, much to its chagrin, Atlanta has achieved a new dastardly distinction. It is the nation’s major hub for human trafficking and child sex exploitation.
More than 12 million human beings—and some 1 million children—are forcibly enslaved and trafficked worldwide in what has escalated into a $32 billion illegal industry. It is a shameful and sordid saga that tarnishes Atlanta’s otherwise impressive image.
“I am so embarrassed that we go from number one as the most sex trafficking city in the United States,” laments childhood sexual abuse advocate Ann Platz, a board member of Well Spring Living. “That needs to grieve the citizens of Atlanta. While we are doing a lot of wonderful things, our children are being taken and other people’s children are being trafficked through our beautiful city. We need to be known as the city that stopped sex trafficking and that we ran it out of here.”
That mission – a call and commitment to combat human trafficking – was the thrust of a high powered public forum and luncheon this weekend at the stately Piedmont Driving Club produced by The Buckhead Cascade City Chapter of The Links, Inc., a prestigious organization of polished, professional and high profiled Atlanta’s black female gentry that has pledged their collective talents and resources to raise public awareness and outrage about this hideous and scandalous epidemic.
Read more: Maynard Eaton, Atlanta Daily World
