Guest Blog: Andi Pray
***Each picture has a link
PROTECT THE CHILDREN
Imagine being a child who only knows the street—hands that punish you for fighting or pushing away. People who tell you to “make people happy” and have a quota of a minimum of ten clients daily. The most important things are to keep the money rolling in and to keep from getting sick.
This child only has memories of being sexually used, seeing others your age, maybe older, maybe younger, killed around you for not following orders, trying to escape, diseases, or childbirth.
The child never gets to return to their family. They might only return in a box—as all memory has been erased with the swipe of a big machine jaw as it places the box in a mass grave pit in a land field. The child is thrown out with the day’s trash—that is the fear that consumes them.
The child is replaceable. They are only worth what they can bring in, and if they fight back, they’re made an example. Sometimes that means new scars, and sometimes that means your life.
The child has no memories of their real family—only fragments in dreams or nightmares of scars, running and hiding. The child has no voice. It was stolen in a traumatic incident no one ever speaks about, but the child allows that incident to fan the fire to fight inside. Will the child finally escape?
WHY I WRITE MY BOOKS
Who am I? I’m Andi Pray, author of Rescue Me (Mouse) and Mina. The subject of human trafficking is my passion, and I take the challenging, uncomfortable topic of Human Trafficking into the world to let the unknowns be known.
WHY HUMAN TRAFFICKING?
In 2019 when the story started to come alive in my imagination, an estimated 27,000,000 people were trapped in human trafficking. This includes child soldiers, child porn, sexual exploitation, organ harvesting, and forced labor.
Human Trafficking is the fastest-growing industry, with an estimated revenue of $150 billion annually. At the beginning of 2023, Love Justice International and A21, a couple of the many organizations against human trafficking, estimated 50,000,000 people are being used.
How do we as a society fight this? Children are the future! If we don’t reach out and shut down the Human Trafficking industry, we are allowing evil to conquer. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” —Edmond Burke (paraphrased).
HOW DOES THE BOOK SERIES BEGIN?
Rescue Me starts with the story of Mouse. A young girl was brought up on the streets into adulthood. They know nothing else. The children trapped in Human Trafficking are not taught how to read or write. They are primarily kept in one building or neighborhood. If they are moved, it mostly means that law enforcement is closing in.
As soon as the new batch of girls arrives, a new underground empire of sexual exploitation will be built. Mouse is public enemy number one with a target on her back.
FBI Special Agent JP Walker is part of a specialized task force against human trafficking. Silas Blaine has been on his radar to take down, and with the whisper of the name "Mouse," he may have found his key to breaking up one of the largest exploitation rings.
We Move to MINA
Mouse is gone, and Mina Harker rises from the ashes. Just like the fictional character in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the world seems impossibly big, and there are worlds within worlds. For Mina, there are too many choices to make, and she tries to keep going with the one thing she knows—helping people.
In the time she is supposed to be healing and learning to take care of herself, she finds she can't sit still. Mina knows leaving the streets can be deadly. After the death of a woman who helped Mina try to heal from her street life, Mina disappears for months. The FBI is trying to find her to keep her safe. Join Mina, JP, Mac, and the rest of the FBI team, along with some new characters you’ll love or find suspicious.
WHY READ SUCH A TOUGH TOPIC?
What do you think when you see someone standing on the streets, using their bodies to get the attention of a “lonely” stranger? What do you feel when someone is arrested for prostitution? Or do you turn a blind eye and try to imagine they don’t exist?
Sexual exploitation is only one of the many contributing factors, and also the biggest. At least the most prominent part. Red light districts, brothels, specific neighborhoods, parking lots, significant crowded events, women, men, boys, girls, those with missing posters, and the unknowns.
Rescue Me is meant to shed light on where these things are possible, that these are exploited human beings deceived and betrayed into believing this is all there is for them. Romanticized into thinking it’s a fun adventure with no strings attached. It is also meant to reach out to those trapped to try to help find a way out and attain help.
REALITY
Only about 1% of those in human trafficking are rescued. Why? Judgment, legalization, secrecy, and arrogance. Some say, “Too bad and so sad,” but don’t look for a solution until their family is touched. It’s not too late to help. Please join the fight to STOP HUMAN TRAFFICKING.
HOW CAN I HELP STOP THIS?
With each book sale, we take a percentage of the sales to help build our future organization, GREEN DISTRICT ANGELS!
As we build GREEN DISTRICT ANGELS, we are one step closer to saving a child and helping them to heal and rehabilitate back to total mental and physical health. For more information, visit www.andipray.com or email andi@andipray.com. Thank you, everyone.
JOIN ME as I speak to April Tribe Giauqe on The BEACON of LIGHT PODCAST on JANUARY 10, 2023, at 6:30 pm MST.