Read:Jeremiah 29:12-13 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Sex trafficking brings images of young girls kidnapped, transported, and forced to sell their bodies. But reality is much more complex. According to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, trafficking occurs any time “a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age.” Basically speaking, anytime someone is under 18 and performs any commercial sex act, it is legally human trafficking.

This act should protect girls like Lucia, an 11-year-old prostitute. Lucia lived in a desperately poor favela with her younger siblings and a mother who couldn’t provide for them. Like any other little girl, Lucia wanted nice clothes, adequate food, and to hear she was special. Since Lucia’s culture places no stigma on prostitution, she chose to trade the only thing she had to offer in exchange for these things: herself.

Lucia’s story is too common among trafficked children, and we must do something to save her and the millions like her.