Sex Trafficking, When isn't going to end?

By: Jennyfer Hiraldo

(Source: Somaly Mam foundation)

There is a country where girls as young as eight are being beaten, raped, and left to die every single day. There is a country where thousands of women are sold into sex slavery every single year. Sex trafficking is one of the biggest issues facing Cambodia today. But it is not just Cambodia’s problem the entire world must solve, once and for all. According to Humantrafficking.org 47 percent of the people trafficked stated that their own mother was responsible for their traffick. Not only are the girls being sold into sex trafficking, they are being sold by their own mother. I Jennyfer Hiraldo a student at Frank McCourt High school have taken the role of finding information about sex trafficking and try to open people’s eyes. Sex trafficking needs to come to an end and the only way that the can happen is by the help of the community and individuals.

Sex trafficking is one of the worst global issue that has happened and is still happening. Sex trafficking is a very hard and sad topic to hear about. Over the years many people have voice their opinion about it and have try to get it to an end. An article about human trafficking reported, “2005 report estimated that 2,000 victims in Cambodia have been trafficked into sexual exploitation, approximately 80 percent of whom were Vietnamese women and girls”. ( Humantrafficking.org). As you can see most of the people who are taken into sex trafficking are women and. Another article reported, “The U.S. State Department estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 people a year are trafficked across international borders, mostly girls and most of them for the sex industry”. (Kristof, Cambodia, Where sex traffickers Are King). So many people are being sold into sex trafficking in a year, the number of people in a year just increases over time. Is time to changed the number and try to help to get the number to decrease.

Sex trafficking is one saddest/disgusting experience that a person can go through. In the book The Road of Lost Innocence by Somaly Mam we learned the story of Somaly Mam a young girl who was abandoned by her parents and then sold into sex trafficking by a man who pretty much owned her. The first time Somaly was raped she was so young that she didn’t even know what had  happen to her, she says “Then he threw me down on a pile of rice sacks and he hold me down. He hit me hard and then raped me. I didn’t know what he had done, but it felt as though he had cut me between my legs” (Mam 24). After that happen Somaly world just keep on getting worst and worst, she was officially sold into a brothel where she was just getting raped and beaten every night by different customer. She tried to escape the brothel but it never worked and after getting caught she would just be send to the punishment room where she was lockdown with live maggots all by herself. Even though he was always putting herself down she knew that she was better than what was happening to her. Srey Pov is another young girl who experience the life of being a sex trafficking and being hold in a brothel for years. Srey Pov  was sold her into the brothel only whens he was  years old, she had not clued about sex but soon after she learned about it. Her virginity was sold and her experience just keep on getting worst “After that, the girl was in huge demand because she was so young. Some 20 customers raped her nightly, she remembers. And the brothel twice stitched her vagina closed so that she could be resold as a virgin. This agonizingly painful practice is common in Asian brothels, where customers sometimes pay hundreds of dollars to rape a virgin”. ( Kristof, The Face of Modern Slavery).When you are in a brothel they don’t care about the girls feelings all they care about is getting a lot of money. Somaly Mam and Srey Pov are to brave women who even though going through the hard of experiences of being hold down in a brothel managed to survive and continue on with their lives and helped about girls.

Throughout the world there's many different things that people can do to help get sex trafficking to an end. Many can start doing foundations like Solamy Man did, a women who experience sex trafficking and is now helping girls that are going through the same experience. With the creation of the foundation Somaly is fighting against sex trafficking and creating a new world for those young girls who  experienced sex trafficking. Working together as a group and voicing our opinions really helps to bring an end to sex trafficking and save hundreds of girls. People as individuals can donate funds or needed items to anti-trafficking organization around their area. People can also  meet with and/or write to your local, state, and federal government representatives to let them know that you care about ending sex trafficking in your community, and ask what they are doing to address sex trafficking in your area. And finally people can start or sign a sex trafficking petition. Is very important to show that we care about about sex trafficking and that we want to get it to an end.