Reduce Demand

In our experience, if you want men to engage in the conversation regarding reducing demand by discouraging the viewing of porn, you need to approach them as to how they can be leaders in the fight against human trafficking, taking on the fight in the way that only men can do. If a man gets an email that his men's group is going to have a presentation on porn, he thinks to himself....they are going to tell me porn is bad and I shouldn't view it. I already know that so I don't need to go." However a title like "End Demand: Men as Leaders in the Fight Against Human Trafficking" sound interesting. That is why we are approaching this subject this way and talking to men about speaking up when they hear that women are being victimized, becoming mentors to young boys, more empowering relationships with their daughters, etc.  Our video on Engaging men that features a panel of 8 men who are national and international leaders is a good place to start and is an excellent video to show to a men's group. Then follow up with this video on 17 Ways to reduce sex buying.  What will really make a difference with adults is to have programs like "Celebrate Recovery" and "The Conquer Series" in our faith communities so sex addicts and their partners can get help. The porn poster to the right can be used to raise awareness. You can download it here.

What is especially disturbing is the fact that Child Porn is the fastest growing aspect of the porn industry creating legions of new pedophiles each year and a demand for younger and younger victims of human trafficking. We can end it by creating a grass roots demand in every country in the world to pass the same business regulation that was passed in England, which requires all internet providers to block child porn so it can not come into the country.  Google and Microsoft are blocking child porn through their search engines, but they are not the only search engines out there. So how do you create a grass roots demand? The answer is that you ask the media to raise awareness of the fact that blocking child porn is possible and the consequences to our children of such easy access to child porn, despite the fact that it is illegal. What many do not realize is that at porn sites are "pop-ups" with titles such as "click here for a more exciting site." Those "pop-ups" are taking porn users, including kids to child porn sites.  Below is a great video to show to children before they are exposed.   

So what actions can we take in the effort to reduce demand and protect our children. In addition talking to our children and asking our representatives to block child porn, we need to wake parents up to the fact that while you may be blocking porn with a program on your computer, your kids could be in the next room on their cell phones, ipads, etc. watching porn. We need to employ apps to block porn on our childrens' phones and go to www.opendns.com to block porn from our wifi so they can't access porn through their gaming systems, ipad, etc. Another important legislative action is to have your state declare porn a national health hazard which has now been done in 16 states.  By recognizing porn as such, education can happen at schools because it takes porn out of the domain of "free speech" into the domain of a threat to health. If we don't get out there and FIGHT, porn producers will continue to encourage people to victimize women and children and influence our children to become future clients of Human Traffickers. Are you ready to take action?!

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