The Innocent

Globally, thousands of children go missing every day, swept up in raids by profiteers, gangs, ragtag armies and multifarious warlords. With crumbling borders and incessant territorial wars, trafficking in human cargo, especially children, has become a more profitable business than selling narcotics. It is a lucrative trade with a supply that never ends, where children become fodder for the world’s depraved.
Infused with adventure, suspense and an unfortunate element of realism, The Innocent is a fast-paced drama that unfolds in Toronto and New York, then unravels in the slums of Mumbai, the steaming jungles of Myanmar, the steppes of northeast Asia, and ultimately in the separate reality of the sordid underbelly of Bangkok.
The manuscript focuses on the lives of three child protagonists – Chandar, Ariff, and little Tien — who symbolically reflect the thousands of children who are traded and sold each day. These are “the disappeared”, the faceless children who turn up in underground brothels, training centers for “domestic slaves”, the squalid sweatshops feeding Western factories, and the perversely specialized pedophile sites that infect cyberspace.
Although the manuscript bears witness to the unmitigated avarice and corruption that fuels the child exploitation industry, the book is also a testament to the human spirit’s relentless struggle for freedom. The problem is pandemic and flourishing, but ultimately we see that the children are not alone. The Innocent follows the life and death struggle of one advocacy group, aided by a Canadian journalist who has lost his own child. He forms an underground network that plans and coordinates rescue missions to save some of the children they’ve managed to locate and have identified as missing.
Since the theme transcends continental, religious, and ethnic parameters, the narrative will appeal to a wide cross section of adults. They may be wrenched by this horrific tale, but it will also give them hope.