In the last couple of weeks, I've seen so many red X's on Facebook that I wondered if a crazed group of editors was hacking pages to correct egregious grammatical errors (we do tend to get a little OCD about things).
But it turns out that the End It movement has caught fire. Its motto: Shine a light on slavery.
I was curious so I visited their Website, enditmovement.com, and learned some big, scary numbers. Numbers like 27 million. That's the number of enslaved people in 161 countries around the world. And don't think the United States gets off in this report. We do not.
The average price put on a human life is $90, and the market value is $32 billion a year.
The site tells you to count to 60 and in that time, four children will have been sold into slavery. That adds up to more than 1 million children a year forced into drudgery and degradation.
What were you doing when you were 14 years old? That's the average age of human trafficking victims in the United States. As many as 17,500 people are sold in the U.S. annually, and right now approximately 200,000 slaves are working in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Worldwide, 80 percent of trafficked humans are female. Guess what that means. It's estimated that 5,000 women and girls are sold into sexual slavery every year in Atlanta, Ga., alone. Atlanta is among the top 14 U.S. cities that are the biggest hubs of slavery.
They didn't make these numbers up. They cite the U.S. Department of State and state reports among their sources.
So what can we do about it? Does slapping a big red X on our hands or our Facebook pages do any good at all? My first reaction to seeing the red X's was pretty cynical, but then I kept reading.
The End It site does offer some opportunities to get involved in helping. You can contribute to End It's awareness campaign by donating or buying products. The site also lists nonprofits that you can contribute to that help fight human trafficking around the world through legislation, rescues and other efforts.
You can get involved through simply sharing information with others. How many of us knew that more people are now enslaved more than in any other time in history? Now we know. Now we have no excuse for turning a blind eye to the fact that men, women and children are being bought and sold around us.
Find out if your area has this issue. See if there are local organizations in which you can volunteer. See if a legislator needs a special poke to support legislation aimed at encouraging other countries that we do business with to ban slavery in their borders.
According to a column written by John D. Sutter on CNN.com, a young woman was recently rescued from sex trafficking in Texas because someone asked her if she was in trouble. This person had heard about the End It movement and had begun to pay attention to what was going on around them.
The more that people stand up for change, the more likely that change will come. The change won't come overnight. It took years for slavery to become illegal in the United States and Great Britain, but change did come.
We've got to start somewhere. So go out and fight the good fight, and if I see you with a red X on your hand, I'll know why.