Child prostitution

The home page of Need Magazine proclaims “We are not out to save the world, but to tell the stories of those who are.” For their premiere issue, Need put together a story with the International Justice Mission. IJM, among other things, rescues children caught in the sex trade.

For whatever reasons, all the Cambodian victims in the story are not Cambodian. They are Vietnamese, including the 6-year-old so often mentioned in news stories. There is shock value in 6-year-old sex slaves, for that is truly shocking.

But skimming over the news headlines, it’s relatively easy to dismiss such horror stories as so much news sensationalism. That is what makes publications like Need so important. CNN and other mainstream news media — with their sound-bite writing styles, small photos and rapid-fire news cycles — are simply too easy to ignore. But pictures, large and in color, seem not only so much more tangible, but so less subjective. Much more so than the printed word, the pictures are impossible to deny.