There are more than 20,000,000 reported incidences of child sexual content, including child pornography and child sex trafficking on Facebook annually. It’s time for an end to this.
Approximately 1 million people – adults and children – are trafficked each year globally, with 20,000 to 50,000 trafficked into the United States, according to Brittanica.com, which estimates that nearly 60 percent involve sexual trafficking.
Sex trafficking is evil and yet it’s commonplace, facilitated by perpetrators using major social media sites like Facebook. It’s an issue of grave importance in our society, but it is often overlooked because of its grotesque nature.
At Timothy Plan, we believe in protecting children and have chosen to join the fight against child sex trafficking. The battle began long ago and has developed in numerous ways. Thanks be to God, resistance to trafficking is building.
Pushing Back Starts with One
Brian Mumbert, Principal, Timothy Plan has created a petition on change.org to sound the alarm on sex trafficking as facilitated on social media giants like Facebook and Instagram.
“Christians invest billions in Facebook stock while Facebook continues to allow sexual predators to recruit child victims,” Mumbert said. “It’s time for that to stop. Our goal is to get a million signatures and affect immediate change.”
According to a 2020 report by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Facebook accounts for 20.3 million of reported instances of child sexual content, including child pornography and child sex trafficking. That dwarfs the next closest platform, Google, with 546,704 instances.
On Sept. 16, the Wall Street Journal published an extensive investigative article about internal memos at Facebook revealing that Facebook executives are not doing enough as exploitation abuses pile up on the site, especially in the Third World. More than 90% of monthly users live outside the U.S. and Canada, the Journal reports. India, for example, has more than 300 million Facebook users, the most of any country.
“Employees flagged that human traffickers in the Middle East used the site to lure women into abusive employment situations in which they were treated like slaves or forced to perform sex work,” the article said. “They warned that armed groups in Ethiopia used the site to incite violence against ethnic minorities. They sent alerts to their bosses on organ selling, pornography and government action against political dissent, according to the documents.”
The situation prompted a BBC investigation in 2019 in which the network alleged that Facebook was allowing human traffickers to sell victims. Upon learning of this, Apple threatened to remove Facebook from its App Store. In response, Facebook stepped up enforcement, finding 300,000 violations. About 1,000 accounts were disabled out of more than 2.85 billion accounts.
The problem is compounded by language barriers and cultural differences. Still, the fact remains that Facebook seems far more aggressive against what it views as ideological opponents in the United States.
“Facebook blocks conservatives, pandemic questions and election challenges, and de-platforms Christian ministries over their support of Israel,” Mumbert said. “But their algorithms overlook more than 20 million instances of sex trafficking and child exploitation. How is that possible?
“As Christians, as human beings, we have a moral obligation to defend the children. The Bible makes it very clear.”
Indeed, Jesus warns in Matthew 18:6-7: “If anyone causes one of these little ones – those who believe in me – to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”
Partnering with Others in the Fight
In 2020, Timothy Plan staff members signed a petition and donated money to fight sex trafficking with Laila Mickelwait, founder of Traffickinghubpetition.com. More than two million people have signed the petition. As a result, MindGeek, the largest producer of pornography online, was exposed, and all major credit card companies ceased providing financial services to them.
The Traffickinghub.com campaign, powered by the anti-trafficking organization Exodus Cry, is a non-religious, nonpartisan effort supported by activists from 192 countries and a broad spectrum of over 300 organizations.
Filtering Out Companies that Profit from Sex Trafficking
Timothy Plan has been educating people of faith and those who care where their money is invested about Facebook’s disregard for their values since Facebook went public. The firm’s leading executives have donated directly to Planned Parenthood (see here) and donated indirectly. Facebook has also blocked pro-life ads (see here and here). Companies that violate human rights and faith-based values have always been filtered out of all Timothy Plan investments. For 27 years, the Timothy Plan family of biblically responsible mutual funds has helped people achieve their financial goals while investing in a morally responsible manner.
Anintricate filtering process provided by eVALUEator Services LLC has been an essential tool to ensure Timothy Plan funds remain biblically responsible. Since 1994, Timothy Plan has existed to help advisers and investors achieve their financial goals through a pro-life, pro-family approach to investing—not only to benefit the investor but the broader culture.
Join us in the fight against child sex trafficking by signing the change.org PETITION today.
