According to the New York Times, over 27 million people are involved in sex trafficking in India. India is a major hub in the sex slavery business, and even with tightening laws, it does not seem like it is going to calm down or get better anytime soon. Sex trafficking is now a criminal offense, but these changes in the law are useless because of the lack of enforcement of them. Trafficking young girls from Nepal, like Lakshmi, is very common throughout India.
Thursday, March 6, 2014
First Post: Annabelle Schofield
For Lakshmi's entire life she has lived in a tiny village in the rural mountains of Nepal. Her family is extremely poor and she is well aware of it. She lives with her young mother and her aggravating stepfather who spends and loses what little money they have on card games. After a huge monsoon ravages their village and kills their entire rice crop, the family is left with nothing. Lakshmi is shocked when she is told that she is being forced by her stepfather to go to the city to work as a "maid." She is even a little bit happy because she believes that she will see her best friend, who was also sent away to the city to work. When her stepfather takes her to town to sell her to her new "auntie" it becomes very apparent to the reader that Lakshmi is being sold into sex slavery in India. When negotiating the high price for her, auntie makes a comment about her not having hips, which confuses Lakshmi but does not surprise her stepfather at all.
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I think that it is horrible that this happens all over the world. People know that this is happening, and many police officers often come across a brothel, but it is too easy to pay them so they will keep quiet, like what happens in the book. In an article by BBC news, it said that these brothels began to pop up in the 1800's, when British soldiers were in India. Even today, many brothels are run by the British. Inside the brothels, the women are treated like object, and a man will usually pay only about $8 for anyone older than 16.
ReplyDeleteI am very glad to have this topic again brought to my attention, because sex slavery is a "in-the-shadows' sort of business it is difficult for me to remember how large of an issue it is. This is mostly because I have never met/known anyone personally who has been involved with sex slavery in any way. That is part of the reason why I am pushing myself to read this book, I feel that it is a topic that I should be more educated on. Although I find myself literally talking through some scenes in the text it is my personal belief that I should be more acknowledged of the effects on girls and prevalence of this problem. When ones knows more about a problem then they are able to find a solution and fix it, in reading this book hopefully people around the world will attempt at helping girls (sometimes men) in sex slavery.
ReplyDeleteAs Annabelle stated in her blog, 27 million people are involved with sex trafficking in India alone. I was stunned by this, I had no idea the numbers were so high! And also from Julianna's comment above, I learned that men prefer to pay for younger girls and will change only $8 for girls above 16 years old. This is completely cruel to the girls... Not only are they being treated worse than objects, but the prices their bodies are given are cheap, I find this extremely insulting and disrespectful.
I have gone into research to uncover the real issue with sex trafficking in areas closet to home and found astonishing information. Everyday people are trafficked over the borders, over 14,500-17,500 over US borders a year and 70% of them are female, half of them are children (www.dosomething.org). Now zooming into our area, San Francisco there were many reports starting at 2006-current year reading that San Francisco massage parlors all over the city were being investigated for human trafficking business (www.sfgate.com) and (americanhistoryusa.com). This was nearly unbearable to hear, San Francisco is a place that I have created many memories in. I almost want to not believe that such a crime could happen in a place that is close to heart. Through reading this book I have become less naive to the real prevalence of sex slavery in our world whether or not it was a heart breaking fact.