Week #6

This week our guest speaker was Heidi Fransen who spoke about Operation Underground Railroad. She is from Rexburg and has been promoting O.U.R. the past year. Operation Underground Railroad was founded by Tim Ballard, a former CIA agent who specialized in human trafficking. He started O.U.R. about a year ago in order to save children that are slaves to human traffickers that sell these children for sex.
Heidi Fransen gave information that was almost hard to believe because of the remarkable statistics and facts. There are about 2,000,000 children being held against their will sold as sex slaves. There are about 200,000 children in America that are being trafficked. The number one consumer is Americans. Child sex slavery is one of the biggest problems right next to drug trafficking and arms trafficking.
Something that killed me to hear was that the children will be rapped around 30 times a day and their life expectancy is about 7 years because they turn to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain. Tim Ballard and his team have connected with the Elizabeth Smart Foundation which helps the children to recovery after they are saved. The children are physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually damaged and need years of rehabilitation. O.U.R. train the different governments that they work with so they can independently perform these operations.
The human traffickers get these children through different medians. Some parents will sell their children in order to get more money because they are so poor. Human traffickers will also offer great opportunities and deals the children and the parents will accept because they want a better life for their children, but then it turns into something they didn't expect. Another huge portal of finding these children are through social media. Tim Ballard said, "The internet is the portal to the darkest places in the world." We may not realize it, but there are more and more people that are getting involved with these children sex slaves because it all stems from pornography. It may start with soft porn which leads to harder porn which leads to child pornography which ends up trying to find pleasure with real children. It is sick, but very real and we cannot ignore it.
Right now O.U.R. is trying to spread awareness because not a lot of people know about it. Heidi has been a huge asset for the organization through promoting it and getting them to show their documentary, Abolitionist here in Rexburg.
We can get involved by visiting their website, www.ourrescue.org and finding ways to help promote and get involved in the stop against pornography and human trafficking.

In class we also went over a few things of how to start a business and what to expect. One of the questions posed is, "What do you think of the statement by Mike Tyson 'Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth' in reference to starting up a business? How is this statement true regarding brand new enterprises? I believe that it is important to be flexible in the plans we make because starting a business creates opportunities to make changes, develop ideas, and make the product or service more relevant to the consumer.

Peter Singer states that each of us spend money that we don't really need. What does he suggest we do with that money? What is the most effective way to give charitably?
We could find different charities that are valuable, trustworthy, and actually making a difference in the world. We will have to do our research because there are different kinds of charities and some are more specific to certain issues. We can all give to different movements that are taking place today.