Let them be Free!

 (Source: http://sachseschurch.org)

 

Abused, insulted, beaten, burned, and slashed the list can go on and on when we look into the sex trafficking. Women and young girls all over the world are being punished and forced to perform sexual services for countless men. Women and young girls loose their identities while there in prostitution, sometimes may never find their identities because they are unable to get out of this horrible system or they tortured to death and make it out. According to human rights groups it’s been estimated that between 12.3 million and 27 million people are forced to do involuntary services at any given time.  Women and young girls don’t deserve to have their bodies and soul sold to men who are going to destroy them inside and out.  

Women and young girls as early as the age of five years old are forced into the sex trafficking business. Sex slavery is caused by gender inequality that allows men to think they could demand sex and that theirs nothing wrong in doing that. Throughout decades after decades in all societies men are believed to be superior and women are inferior. According to the article Half the Sky” It’s been estimated that eighty percent of women and young girls are trafficked into the sexual exploitation”.  They are sex slaves and are forced to work and serve men and their sexual needs even if they don’t want to. They are controlled and owned by pimps or anyone they are sold to, they get brutally abused and are treated like objects and most of the time they are not able to escape.

Women in this business are physically, mentally, and emotionally effected by the sex trade. Women and young girls tend to loose who they are and become dead in who they are. They have low self esteem and think of themselves as worthless and they start to internalize their role in being a prostitute. They also become very vulnerable and naive which makes easy for them to get tricked into being traded, sold, or kidnap. Recently during Humanities in my Lit circle group we've been reading the autobiography “The Road of Lost Innocence” the true story of a Cambodian Heroine by Somaly Mam. Somaly Mam was born in a village deep in the Cambodian forest, she was sold into prostitution by her random guy that she called her grandfather when she was twelve years old. She was sold to the brothels that make up the huge sex trade throughout Southeast Asia. Somaly suffered horrific brutal acts and witnessed horrors that you wouldn't believe. Somaly was beaten and tortured in the basement of the brothels that she was working in for resisting to have sex men she didn't approve of.  “Li beat me with his cane and tied me naked to a bed. Anyone who came was given the pleasure of looking at me. Despite everything I’d been through I was fundamentally modest, and this experience was horrible. That night his brother and all their friends took their turn with me while I was still tied up. It went on like that for a week. I was sick, shaking with fever” (53). Somaly endured horrific torture that no young girl should go through , there were times when her pimp would continue to have her tied up and as her punishment he would dump a bucket full of live maggots on her while she was awake or sleeping. She was naked and he would dump them into her mouth and all over her nude body. This experience gives Somaly till this day horrible nightmares that she would never forget. All the horrible experiences throughout her childhood and when she was in the brothel will haunt her for the rest of her lives, those memories don’t just go away. They are now apart of her and who she was force to become.

Although this global issue has been around for many years before us and this issue can seem impossible to end, there are some things that we can do as individuals to take the right steps to end this in the future. There many organizations and foundations that are in the process of rescuing and donating money to try to help these trafficking victims. For instance the Somaly Mam Foundation, she rescues sex victims as young as five and six years old  offering them shelter, healing, love and everything they need to help them start a new life. Not only are there great foundations trying to help put an end to this but you also can raise awareness in any way you can. If that means writing a paper in a newspaper or blog, donating your money, or just actually joining and being a member of an organizations or foundations. Or actually being an active member rescuing girls and going to other countries providing change. Sex trafficking is one of the most awful global issue in this world, no one in this world should be violated and exploited the way these girls around the world are treated. Everyone should have that right to their own body and be able to be free.  No one should go through such horrific torture, they should be free, we all have the right to be free.

Name and Section: Eva Nicole Gonzalez- 10D

Op-Ed Title: Let them be free!

Abstract: This article discusses the global issue on sex trafficking and the affects it has on women and young girls and what we can do as individual to make an end to this.

Bibliography:

Source (JStor): Julia O'Connell Davidson .Feminist Review. No. 83, Sexual Moralities (2006), pp. 4-22JStor. Web. 29 May 2013.   (http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3874380.pdf)

Source (Online): Noy Thrupkaew. A Misguided Moral Crusades. Published: September 22, 2012: Web. 29 May 2013. (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/opinion/sunday/ending-demand-wont-stop-prostitution.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

Source 2 (online):Slavery's New Face:Sex Trafficking of Women and Girls

(http://www.soroptimist.org/stoptrafficking.html)

Source 3 (online):Half the Sky Movement. Web.29 May 2013 (http://www.halftheskymovement.org/issues/sex-trafficking)