It still is fabulously terrifying and sorrowful to me that world-wide, so many women, men and children are enslaved every year and henceforth, trafficked across borders. I am, as part of my training, an anthropologist. Thus, alone and by itself, what I have witnessed in that training has been horrifying.
Tonight I watched the Liam Neeson movie,
Taken. The film entails a father's unyielding determination to retrieve his daughter who was kidnapped and sold into slavery while on a vacation in Paris. I recommend the film for this reason if no other -- any parent worth their salt will find it gratifying in the sense that it echoes what we would all do, or attempt to do, if placed in a similar situation.
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Slavery is not the natural state of human beings. Time and history have unveiled countless stories of how far one person or a group will go in order to find a state of freedom, whatever that freedom may be. In those tales, some extravagant, most heartbreaking, it becomes apparent that slavery takes a toll on the whole of human beings, overall. It eats away at our sense of self, our sense of life, and our sense of existence. It shames the very notion that we are 'higher' mammals, and debases us no matter where we live or whom we think we are.
Moreover, I cannot dismiss the notion that fueling this most deplorable face of human bondage are both the male libido, and desire for sexual gratification from the youngest, most 'pure' girls and women. It may sound un-balanced and spurrious to argue this point but that does not, in itself, form a point of contention against hard statistical data. When taken down to the bare bones of it, there exists so much pain, devastation and loss wrought simply in the drive to attain an orgasm. This orgasm is obtained not within the bounds of healthy sexual activity, but in the twisted and gnarled sense of being that no longer demands and dictates decency and a modicum of feeling. It emanates from the notion that engaging in sexual activity with young girls and boys, especially virgins, makes one the most virile of sexual 'conquistadors.'
Perhaps it is because I am female that I do not understand the drive that men have, sexually. Yet, on the other side of this coin, one cannot overlook the fact that the majority of men do not engage in such despicable activities in order to achieve sexual satisfaction. Hence, I do not fault men as an entire group. That notion notwithstanding, it is undeniably clear that the vast majority of sexual slaves are young girls and children. Couple with this the fact that the majority of those who keep this industry lucrative are male 'patrons,' and you have an overall, and very sobering picture. To ignore this encapsulating image and the sheer overwhelming patronage of male solicitors within it is, in any attempt to end or even comprehend the survival of sexual slavery over centuries, absurd.
No matter the nature of the examination, I feel that any human being looking at the existence of sexual bondage, whose sense of compassion is still intact, will start to wonder where does that compassion end and such disgusting lack of care for other creatures begin? What does it take to make one truly let go of their senses, forebearance and humanity and ignore what they are doing to another person? Perhaps these sound like naïve and infantile queries, but are they truly? How does one begin to find an answer that points the way toward ending sexual slavery until they acknowledge the base, fundamental lack of humanity that allows it to exist?
For example, ask yourself how does one have sex with a girl who is inanimate and non-responsive due to her exhaustion, her compulsory drug-induced stupor, or simply because she is too fearful to resist? That is to say how does one do this without a shred of consciousness? Even more startling is the fact that FATHERS, yes, FATHERS do this. Men who have wives, daughters, nieces, sisters and yes, of course, MOTHERS engage in sexually abusing trafficked human beings.
What is more, how do the governments of the world turn a blind eye?
In taking in the loathsome whole of it, one becomes astounded, flabbergasted, bewildered and infuriated that
this kind of apathy and comprehensive disregard for human life, exists. We pride ourselves on being in an age of modernity. Yet we are still allowing an industry to thrive that is supported and underwritten by our most base desires -- those of lust and unrestrained sexual conquest.
There are, of course, no swift or sweeping answers or courses of action. However, I will say for certain that it will continue -- sexual slavery, that is -- until it becomes more lucrative to disallow trafficking than it is to allow it.
With this as a guiding vein we begin to understand that humans are a species fraught with the diseases of mad hypocrisy and greed. In fact, we are the worst sort of hypocrites and avaricious beings for allowing actions against someone else's child, mother, brother, father or sister that we would never permit, were it our own families. But, until money and power are removed as the highest of goals, we shall never see an end to it.
Q: How much is enough? How much is one human life worth? How rich does one have to be before the bounds of avarice are reached? How much is a person?
A: According to statistics I have read recently on Meso-American and Eastern European sex slaves being trafficked INTO the United States? Anywhere from $12,000 to $18, ooo each.
This is less than most of us spend on a car.
A species of hypocrites, are we. If such a vast repository of pain as that engendered by the composite failure which enables human slavery, is not made null, rapaciousness will excoriate and eviscerate our very essence of light. It will dim and summarily snuff out that bright, shining gleam, first seen in the eyes of a child, the very one that illuminates our winter and shines the sun across the heart.
"No one shall be held in slavery or servitude: slavery
and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms."
-United Nations: Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Statistics courtesy of:
Rafizadeh, Elbina. "Statistics of Modern Day Slavery." Socyberty. Available from http://www.socyberty.com/Activism/Statistics-of-Modern-Day-Slavery.113351. Internet; accessed 14 July 2009.Also, please see what you can do to help thwart and end sexual slavery by visiting this site:
http://www.soroptimist.org/trafficking/stopping.html
