Expectations are a hard thing to nail down. It requires humility to ask an experience to simply ravage you, and yet, I expect this trip to do nothing less. We are going to confront something that shows how cruel people can be. I have been in the anti-trafficking world for 10 years and I still don't get it.
Slavery still exists in our world today. 27 million people are enslaved in
conditions equally (or more) horrific to the transatlantic slave trade.
But the time you finish reading this dozens of girls will have been bought and raped.
conditions equally (or more) horrific to the transatlantic slave trade.
But the time you finish reading this dozens of girls will have been bought and raped.
It's uncomfortable, I admit. But I hope to address it from a place where it is manageable while keeping it real and accurate. Everyone agrees that a child should not be raped. Well obviously that's not true; if it was we would be having a modified discussion. And in that discrepancy is the issue. Why do people buy little girls (& boys) and women for sex? It stems from a gap in culture, and what it means to be "man" and the need for power. The prostitution of people has been around since Genesis, but that doesn't make it right.
I am baffled by those who see it as a legitimate occupation. How can it be "legitimate" when it is in its essence harmful? And nothing that forces girls as young as 10 to be raped daily will ever be considered legitimate to me. Trafficking and prostitution are all about the control of one (the purchaser) at the expense of the other (the prostituted women). Whether its porn, peep shows or prostitution there is nothing "legitimate" about any of this.
...But we'll get there.
It's becoming more real by the moment and I have so much to do before we go.
