What Is Child Exploitation?

To ask “what is child exploitation” is to irretrievably open our hearts and minds to one of our world’s greatest evils. Child exploitation ranges from child labor to sex trafficking. It is anything that deprives a child of the needed growth, nurturing and education that sets them up for the best chance at a productive life.

Articles 3, 4 and 5 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights read1:
  • Article 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
  • Article 4: No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
  • Article 5: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Psalm 127:3-4 tells us,

“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth” (NKJV).

These gifts from God are not always treated as they should be as rewards from our God in heaven. Right now, there are 160 million children in labor situations they should not be in.2 The number of children in and affected by sex trafficking and child pornography is likely appalling but difficult to quantify in a secretive and dangerous industry.

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me,”3 in a time when children were not openly adored. He healed children and rebuked His own disciples for not allowing them to come and see Him. God’s care for every human begins before birth, as Psalm 139:13-16 declares:

“For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them” (NKJV).


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