Sexual slavery: average lifespan is 7 years… - Joy In These Days - timesunion.com - Albany NY

Joy In These Days By Liz Lemery Joy, ordained Christian minister and Bible teacher

Sexual slavery: average lifespan is 7 years…

June 14, 2012 at 1:28 pm by Liz Lemery Joy

Dear Readers,

As you know, I have been highlighting the sex trafficking industry in the United States. We have gotten a lot of feedback in comments and other conversations regarding this issue. I am the first one to admit, that I truly didn’t realize, or have an awareness about the magnitude of trafficking young girls and boys on American soil. As a mother of four, two girls and two boys,….I was heart broken. I couldn’t wrap my head around the horrific abuse these young precious ones must endure…it gripped my soul.

Then, I became friends with Melissa Woodward, founder of For the Sake of One. This is one ministry, among many ministries and organizations that are trying to stop sex trafficking. She is also a survivor, which is very rare. She barely made it out alive. You can read her story in the previous posts.


I was on the phone with her the other day, and one of the statistics she cited shook me to the core. She said the average expected lifespan of a young trafficked child is 7 years. Meaning, once they are put into the industry, within 7 years they will be dead. Many are beaten to death, shot, get sick and receive no treatment, or like Melissa, might be thrown into a trash can after a ‘buyer’ wants to act out a deadly fantasy…they simply die, or are left to die…

Sex trafficking is an issue everyone in America can come together on. There is no politics, economic background, tax bracket, or religion, that can divide the hearts of Americans coming together to put a stop to this industry. It’s purely evil and deadly. It is affecting our youth and generating billions of dollars in the United States. It is an industry that is fueled by pornography. The pornography industry is one of the biggest revenue generators in the entire world.


There is so much we can do! We can give our time, or financial resources. We can put pressure on retailers, and television networks to stop allowing porn related materials in their stores and networks.


If you can’t give resources, at least be aware and teach your children and teens what to watch out for. I would also ask you to post this video to your Facebook pages. Help others be aware too. Perhaps, they were like me, and didn’t really realize the scope of the problem in the United States- And by the way, statistically, New York state is one of the top states for sex trafficking…


Sincerely,
Liz




Jun 8, 2012 by DKnabe

In Los Angeles County, girls, as young as 11 or 12, are being bought and sold on the streets as prostitutes. These young girls are being manipulated by pimps and put on the streets to make money. A trafficker can make over $140,000 annually off of one girl and most have more than one girl in their stable. MANIPULATED is a gritty and real look at this issue that is not just happening "over there."

Music Credit: Chromatics, Cliff Martinez

Source: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tJlkLFSmbb4

Many other videos here.

Source:
Sexual slavery: average lifespan is 7 years… - Joy In These Days - timesunion.com - Albany NY

Sailing

 






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Invisible Indian: Federal Court grants rights to Métis, non-status Indians

“ The growing and dying of the moon reminds us of our ignorance which comes and goes—but when the moon is full it is as if the Great Spirit were upon the whole world. ” 

—Black Elk, Oglala Sioux

Federal Court grants rights to Métis, non-status Indians

Off-reserve aboriginal people are 'Indians' and entitled to same constitutional rights

The federal government has lost the latest battle in a 13-year legal fight over its responsibilities to Métis and non-status Indians.

On Tuesday, the Federal Court ruled that 200,000 Métis and 400,000 non-status Indians in Canada are indeed "Indians" under the Constitution Act, and fall under federal jurisdiction.
The decision helps to more clearly outline Ottawa's responsibilities toward the two aboriginal groups.

"The recognition of Métis and non-status Indian as Indians under section 91(24) should accord a further level of respect and reconciliation by removing the constitutional uncertainty surrounding these groups," Federal Court Judge Michael Phelan writes.




Invisible Indian




source:

The Canadian Press

Federal Court grants rights to Métis, non-status Indians - Politics - CBC News

 http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2013/01/08/pol-cp-metis-indians-federal-court-challenge.html

Legal Pot Draws Lawyers, Wall Street to Washington

Posted on December 10, 2012 by Zen-Haven

Author: Kim Murphy

Customers have been drifting into Jay Fratt’s alternative pipe and tobacco shop, Smokin J’s, in the days since Washington state’s marijuana law took effect, wondering when cannabis would take its place on the shelves next to the handblown glass pipes.

Hold on, he told them. Fratt is, before anything else, a businessman, and he quickly realized there was a lot of smoke in the details.

First of all, the law setting up the nation’s first legal regulatory system for retail pot won’t allow sales until next year. And the federal government still considers marijuana illegal.

Then there are the taxation provisions: Can legal retailers compete with the black market when they have to pay over 25% in taxes? What about the provision that says marijuana shops can’t stock anything but pot and pot supplies? What would happen to the Vancouver, Wash., shopkeeper’s tie-dye baby jumpsuits, his “Stoner” trivia games, his meditating Buddha tapestries?

The euphoria that accompanied the debut of the initiative making it legal inWashington for adults to possess an ounce or less of marijuana faded shortly after midnight Thursday, when about 150 people gathered at the base of the Space Needle in Seattle to toke up in celebration.

By Friday morning, the bureaucrats, the lawyers and the suits from Wall Street were pulling into town as state regulators began setting up what could become a $1-billion industry, built precariously on a product whose possession the federal government considers a felony.

State officials estimate that pot will soon be selling legally for about $12 a gram, with annual consumption of 85 million grams — a potential bonanza in state tax revenue of nearly $2 billion over the first five years.

“I’m telling my clients, if I had a collective and I knew that legalization was coming and I knew they were going to be licensing people and I was already in the business, I’d be one of the first people going to apply for a license,” said Jay Berneburg, a Tacoma, Wash., lawyer who held a seminar recently about getting into the retail trade.

“You could make a million dollars in five days. There’s going to be people lined up to buy marijuana, just because they can,” he said.

Venture capitalists are moving in. Brendan Kennedy and Michael Blue, two Yale University MBA graduates with backgrounds in Silicon Valley, have raised $5 million through their private equity firm, Privateer Holdings, believed to be the first in the nation to focus strictly on marijuana-related companies.

“We realized this was and is the biggest opportunity we think we’ll probably see in our lifetimes,” Blue said.

Their first acquisition was Leafly.com, a website that rates strains of marijuana for their medicinal properties. Users can plug in their ZIP codes and find out which products available in their areas produce the effects they’re looking for, from “giggly” to the ability to treat migraines.

Vaporizers are another product they’re looking at — anything that doesn’t directly involve buying or selling marijuana. Privateer is offering investors the chance to make money in an arena most venture capitalists can’t touch under standard partnership agreements, which normally spell out that investments not in compliance with federal law are prohibited. That means, they figure, an opportunity for stunning profits with little competition from other investment firms — though one has to listen to a lot of Bob Marley at trade shows.

“I’ve studied a lot of industries. I’ve never seen one that had this unique set of circumstances,” Kennedy said. “It’s highly fragmented, it’s very unstructured, there’s no leaders, there’s no standards. The entire topic is taboo, and there’s no involvement by Wall Street … which is a unique opportunity, right?”

The state Liquor Control Board is asking for a staff of 40 to help set up a network of possibly 300 or more state-licensed retail stores. The board must also figure out how to regulate growers and packagers.

That process will take much of the next year. Though it has been legal since Thursday for adults to use small amounts of marijuana away from public view, they can’t buy it, sell it or grow it until regulations are in place. Exemptions remain for medical users under existing law.



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Legal Pot Draws Lawyers, Wall Street to Washington

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