As we rapidly approach the New Year, many of us will feel a tinge of urgency within the back of our minds. In the midst of all of the fun parties, family get-togethers and general warmth and well-being it's almost impossible to forget that all around the world and even here within the United States and Atlanta, Georgia, there are many children that are experiencing something far different than us.

Right now, children are being sold for sex. They are servicing men and women just the same now as they were during all other seasons during the year. So, in preparing for a new year of fighting to raise awareness about sex trafficking in Atlanta, the United States as a whole as well as the world in general -- it is important to look back at 2007.

Knowledge is power and educating people about the global sex slavery trade is the bulk of the battle right now. 2008 will mark the 8-year anniversary of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 -- the U.S. law that guides anti-human trafficking efforts.

The fact that so many Americans, especially here in Atlanta, remain ignorant as to what child sex trafficking is nonetheless that it occurs exponentially here in America proves how little our efforts to invoke awareness have proceeded.

However, one of the primary ways we can help become further educated and indeed take action to cure the ill of global sex trafficking is to further spread information as it arises.

Because very few media outlets including newspapers and news broadcast stations within the United States actually report on human sex trafficking locally or abroad, then it is rare that people would have a way to find out about these issues.

Furthermore, the confined reports that the United States government issues on the subject of Sex Trafficking are even more scarcely known among Americans and especially the citizens of Atlanta.

In order for all of us to pitch in and lend a hand, we must first take hold of the information that is released to the public, but that may not be as well known. One such report is the annual Sex Trafficking Report released to Congress on behalf of the The Department of State of the United States.

The 2007 Sex Trafficking Report found here will provide invaluable information for anyone looking to gain more knowledge and understanding of the local and global child sex trafficking trade.

The 2007 report provides information on many locations throughout the world including the following.

• Burma
  Cambodia
  India
  Rwanda/United Kingdom
  Kenya/Germany
  North Korea/China
  Nigeria/United States
  Kazakhstan/Russia
  Kyrgyz Republic/U.A.E
  Ukraine/Italy
  Brazil

...and much, much more.

Briefly demonstrating just how widespread the issue of child sex trafficking is and how relevant to Americans the issues has become, the 2007 report mentions the following:

14-year old girl Jenny left her native Nigeria for the United States to work in the home of a couple, also originally from an African Country. She thought she would be paid to look after their children, but the reality was very different. For five years Jenny was repeatedly raped by her employer. His wife physically assaulted her, sometimes with a cane and on one occasion with a high heeled shoe.

On the global scale, the 2007 report also mentions the following information:

• Zambien Girls were trafficked to Ireland for commercial sexual exploitation

  Fillipina women were trafficked to Cote d'Ivoire for commercial sexual exploitation

  Vietnamese children were trafficked to the United Kingdom for forced involvement in drug smuggling

  Thai men were trafficked to the United States for labor exploitation and debt bondage

  Dominican women were trafficked to Montenegro for commercial sexual exploitation

  A Kenyan woman was trafficked to Mexico for commercial sexual exploitation

  Russia students were trafficked to the United States for forced labor

By simply taking the initiative to educate ourselves on the issues of global child sex trafficking, we can understand how it pertains to us here in Atlanta and in the United States in general. We can help by simply spreading the information and readily using the amazing communication tool that is the Internet to educate each other.