So last night I finished reading an excerpt from the book Half The Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide for a class I'm taking this summer. It made me recall the various educational events and fundraisers that I did with UNICEF to bring awareness to the issue of human trafficking, more specifically, the trafficking of women and girls as sex slaves.
What people don't realize is that millions of young girls and women are taken from their homes and forced into prostitution by force of beatings, rape, and countless other forms of abuse. These brothels often don't give them clothes, shoes, or wages for fear that they'll run away.
Furthermore customers rarely use condoms, thus contributing to pregnancies (where if not aborted right away, they take the children from their mothers to keep them from running away as well as to raise the children to be new prostitutes) and disease. As this book points out, one of the leading causes of death amongst these sex slaves is AIDS. They even pointed out that in some parts of the world, predominantly in Africa, there is a myth that you will be cured of AIDS if you have sex with a virgin, thus triggering and increase in abductions of young girls.
This is a horrific occurrence and many people, even the authorities, just turn and look the other way. What's more, many Americans think "oh, this only happens in OTHER countries, it's not like it's in my backyard." The fact of the matter is, it IS in our backyard. Madison, WI alone has estimates of at least 200 sex slaves, trafficked from all over. There isn't a major city (or even suburban, smaller cities) that isn't affected by human trafficking. Hundreds of thousands of people (predominantly women and girls) are trafficked into the US as mail-order brides, person masseuses, or underground brothel workers.
So denying that this is happening, that millions of women are girls are being forced into slavery, should not be an option. We are all linked together by being human, by the capacity to feel and love, the innate need to survive and have freedom. Ignoring millions of people for the sake of your own privileged existence is crime to yourself as a human being.
It's time to start taking action, get involved with organizations that combat human trafficking, travel abroad and volunteer at schools and shelters for women and girls, or at least do your research and remain aware of what's going on so you can spread the word. Unless the masses start speaking up, nothing is going to change. Not only should we be helping rescue women and girls from all over the globe, providing them with education and job opportunities, but we should be rescuing our sisters that live in fear right under our noses. It's also important to note that we have to be mindful of the cultures of each of these places that are plagued with this problem. We need to find a way to allow them to figure out their own means of combating this issue and supporting them in those endeavors. We're not here to be the happy-go-lucky white middle-class folk that just throw money at them, we need them to take feminism and figure out what it means to them and the best means of achieving an equal world.
I'm not saying this is an easy process by any means, but we need to stop living in the dark. Host events on your campuses or in your communities about what is actually happening here in our backyards. Never underestimate the power of education. Even if you don't have the money to spare to help the cause, that doesn't mean you're useless. Talk about these issues, tell your neighbors, friends, coworkers, and families.
If you do come across someone whom you think might be the victim of trafficking, tell the authorities or find a rape crisis organization and notify them. They can help from there. It's time we start fighting sexism within our own societies, and support others in their efforts. Anytime a wombyn anywhere in the world is oppressed, we are all oppressed.
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Now go out there and get active!
Rae
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