Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls

These are some screenshots from an article I read in my social issues course last semester that deals with sexual exploitation. This is not the article in it's entirety, but merely segments. (This article was published in a larger work in the form of a book; thus I am unable to provide a link to the full source. I sincerely apologize.)

(Click on screenshots to make them larger.)

Reading this makes me angry, scared, and heart-broken. In hearing the statement about Brazil, all I could think about were the precious little girls I met in Sao Paulo this summer: Julia, Bianca, Rebeca, Jeovana, Ana, Paloma... 

What if this happened to them?

Fact: Human trafficking brings in $32,000,000 annually; that's more than Google, Starbucks, and Nike combined. 

Just take a second to really think about that... 

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Mya's Story

Human trafficking is making modern-day slaves out of millions of vulnerable children. Mya is a young girl from Myanmar who was sold by her mother and forced into child labor. This is her story.*

My name is Mya Islam and I am 11 years old. When I was 7, my mother asked me if I wanted to sell flowers. I said “yes” because I wanted to help earn money for our family. That’s when she sold me to a stranger for 3,000 Baht [about $96 US]. He promised my mother he would send her more money from my earnings every three months.

The man put me on the back of a crowded truck and drove me from my home in Myanmar all the way to Bangkok, Thailand. Of the 20 people on the truck with me, I soon realized I was the only child. Terrified, I crawled to the furthest corner to hide. Finally, too tired to keep my eyes open, I fell asleep.

When we arrived in Bangkok, I was taken from house to house until I finally met my employer—a woman who told me she had paid 10,000 Baht for me.

My job would be to sell roses in a popular bar in Bangkok. Night after night I would leave the house at 9, sell about 100 roses all through the night, and return home around 6 the next morning.

The nights were long and I would get very tired. I cried a lot. I missed my family. Sometimes when I would go to the bar, people would buy all of my flowers at once. They said that children shouldn’t have to work and that I should go home. The first time this happened I was shocked. I thought it was normal for children to work. But others told me I was lucky. While boys who were sold would be put to work in a job like mine, most girls who were sold were taken to brothels in Malaysia.

In spite of what they said, I didn’t feel lucky. I thought about trying to escape, but I didn’t dare...


Four years passed and I was still in Bangkok, worlds away from my home.

One day when I was on my way back to the house, I was arrested by the police for being an illegal immigrant. I was frightened about what would be done with me. But it turned out to be the best thing that could have happened!

I was brought to the World Vision Foundation of Thailand’s (WVFT) Mae Sot Anti-Human Trafficking office. The people there made me feel safe and promised to help find my family. Four months later I was finally able to visit my family again.

World Vision has worked with my parents to help them understand why it’s important for me to go to school. My mother says she doesn’t want me to work anymore. Now instead of selling roses, I go to a special school where I study Burmese, English, Thai, and other subjects. I’ll never forget my ordeal in Bangkok, but all of that is behind me now.

*This story is based on interviews with Mya Islam. Her name has been changed to protect her identity.

{Source}

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Masood's Story

Human trafficking is making modernday slaves out of millions of vulnerable children. Masood is a young boy from Pakistan who was exploited and defiled. This is his story.*

My name is Masood. I am from the Galliat region of Pakistan, in the foothills of the Himalayas. It is beautiful there—so green and peaceful.

My mother died when I was young and my father remarried not long afterward. My stepmother constantly mistreated me. As I got older, living with her became unbearable. Finally, I boarded a bus and left on my own. I was only 15. I didn’t know where the bus was going—I just got off at the last stop. It was a busy bus terminal in the huge, crowded city of Rawalpindi.

I didn’t know anyone in this strange city. I was hungry, so I asked a hotel owner if I could work for him. I thought I could wash dishes to make money. He said yes, and told me I could stay in a room with some other children.

My first night there, a man came into the room and forced me to have sex with him. I was terrified, but what could I do? The second night another man came and did the same thing. Fighting back my shame, I went to the hotel manager and told him what was happening. I was stunned when he told me not to bother him. He said that kind of thing happened all the time. When I told him I wanted to leave, he said the police would throw me in jail and I’d be killed by strangers.

Afraid of what he’d said, I stayed. I washed dishes during the day, and served “customers” at night. Every customer paid about $.50 or bought me dinner. All of the boys at the hotel did the same thing. I hated what I was doing, so I began to use alcohol and drugs to try to block it out. After awhile, I became numb—I had no other choice. My family didn’t care about me, and I had nowhere else to go.


At one point I tried to get a normal job, but I had no skills. I had only been to school up to fourth grade. Nobody would give me work without abusing me, so I decided I would start charging every customer myself. I became a prostitute—and that’s how I made a living.

I have learned a lot since I started working as a prostitute. There are networks in the city that sell boys to wealthy older men who use them as companions. These men keep the boys for a while and then re-sell them when they get bored. Of course, once a boy has had one or two owners, his value drops. He is re-sold for less and less money each time.

I used to have dreams, but this is how my life turned out. Sometimes I still imagine what it would be like to have a real job, a family, a house of my own … to be normal. But there’s no way I could have any of that now.

*This story is based on interviews with Masood. His name has been changed to protect his identity.

{Source}

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Very Young Girls

This documentary gives us a glimpse into domestic sex trafficking. It focuses around and organization in New York City called GEMS (Girls Educational and Mentoring Services), whose goal is to save girls from sexual exploitation and rehabilitate them to a state where they can be reintegrated into society. This is the story of just a few of those girls...






These girls were deceived, disillusioned, and distressed. In our society, we often look at prostitution as a "life choice" for the women involved. No, these girls were coerced, and they are trapped by fear, lies, and threats. The average age that a female enters prostitution is 13--essentially a child. They are victims, but they are viewed as inferior beings. In our courts, they are tried as criminals, while the men who purchase them are not. In their homes, they face conflict and feelings of alienation from their family. When they are passed on the street, people regard them disdain. What they need is support, to be given guidance and to really be cared for. GEMS strives to provide them with the hope and opportunity for a prosperous future, as we too should do.

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An Introduction

This blog was created to discuss the issue of human trafficking and it's connection to the theme of alienation. The title was inspired by the "Price of Life" teeshirts that were sold by JMU InterVarsity's 2010 Justice Team in an effort to raise awareness and support for World Vision in their efforts to combat human trafficking.

It refers to the corruption of putting a price value on a  human life--something that is inherently priceless and should be treasured far beyond material currency.

To start, let's take a look at the denotation of of these terms:

Human trafficking: the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons:
by the threat or use of kidnapping, force, fraud, deception or coercion, or by the giving or receiving of unlawful payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, and for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor. {source}

Alienation: the state of being withdrawn or isolated from the objective world, as through indifference or disaffection {source}; A separation of individuals from control and direction of their social life {source}

Individuals who are trafficked are coercively or forcibly removed from their home, society, and in some instances they are taken to other countries all together. Whether they are forced into child soldiery, child labor, the sex trade, or any variation of these, victims of trafficking are ostracized from mainstream society. They are removed from the life they once knew and are then confined to a life of oppression, abuse, and exploitation. And even in some instances where victims are liberated from trafficking, society views them as tainted and taboo. Reintegration into society is a long and strenuous process.

I hope to address these issues more in depth through these posts, so please stay tuned!

Also, please see the sidebar to get more information on organizations that have made it their mission to rid the world of this injustice.

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