New song created for the Army’s Initiative Against Sexual Trafficking

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“Child of God” now available

Music for the Soul, a nonprofit “emotional relief organization,” created a song for The Salvation Army’s Initiative Against Sexual Trafficking (IAST). Written by Steve Siler and entitled “Child of God,” the lyrics expose the feelings of isolation, abandonment and pain that prostituted women endure.

Lisa Thompson, IAST liaison, met Steve Siler, Music for the Soul founder, following the release of Somebody’s Daughter, a documentary about men’s struggle with pornography. Siler began the project following a friend’s late night call. He confessed to Siler his ongoing battle with pornography. Siler said the two decided that night, “We wanted to plant a flag; to say to the world that every woman is a child of God, deserving of dignity and respect and to be loved for who she is on the inside.”

Siler and Thompson have since corresponded on issues relating to sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. Last fall, Siler promised to write a song for the IAST movement. The song is now available.

“In the battle against the ravages of the commercial sex industry and sex trafficking it is rare that people quickly comprehend the isolation, abandonment and pain of those who are prostituted,” Thompson said. “It took me a long time before I understood all the nuances, and how the commercial sex industry can twist and distort reality so much that it can make itself almost look normal, harmless and even liberating. When held up to closer inspection, all the distortions evaporate and the hideous ugliness of the industry is exposed.

“Steve understood all this and grasped it virtually overnight,” Thompson said. “His understanding pours out of every line and every stanza of this song.”

Listen to the song at musicforthesoul.org (click on the “Child of God” link under the green tabs on the left).

Contact Music for the Soul directly (see site’s contact page) for a copy of the song and permission to use it.

“I am absolutely certain that many, many people will be blessed by ‘Child of God,’ Thompson said. “I know I have been. May it help soften the hearts of those in the sex trade, and may it be a message of love, comfort and renewal to those who thought they were ‘just prostitutes.’”

Child of God
By Steve Siler
Copyright 2009
(Lyrics distributed with permission)
Music for the Soul

I paint on the face
I strap on the heels
I shut down my heart so it won’t have to feel
the hands that don’t know me all over my skin
and the eyes that don’t love me drinking me in

Under this make-up
I’m black and blue
The petals were crushed before I could bloom
I didn’t choose this
No one ever would
And I’d break these chains if only I could

I’m a child of God
I hide in plain sight
I’m a child of God
Slave to the night
Powerless, broken, abandoned, abused
Do you see a child of God
Or just a prostitute?

The world looks away and calls me a whore
and each day I die just a little bit more
A disposable person to keep at arms length
Human trash…
Is that what you think?

I’m a child of God
I hide in plain sight
I’m a child of God
Slave to the night
Powerless, broken, abandoned, abused
Do you see a child of God
Or just a prostitute?

What I’ve become is not who I am
We both were created by the very same hand

I’m a child of God
I hide in plain sight
I’m a child of God
This isn’t right
See my humanity
Look for the truth
I am a child of God
I am a child of God
Not a prostitute


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