Sex Trafficking Stealing Innocence

Dasha Kofman

Two million children are living in brothels and are having their bodies sold hourly (International Justice Mission). Brothel owners and pimps are able to quickly manipulate young children who have been kicked out or have run away from home due to violence at home. The promise of food, clothing and clean water lure naive children into brothels that will beat the child out of them and leave them empty, ashamed and alone. Young adults who can no longer endure daily beating and starvation know that that the only way to escape torture is to not fight the men. Most of these men who are the age of their father and grandfathers exchange money for their bodies. In the United States we can easily point figures at these developing countries but we are equally in the wrong. Sex trafficking is a horrific illegal industry that continues to get worse every year that as of now is a business that has an total market value of  $32 billion (International Justice Mission). 

United States knows exactly what is occurring  and the circumstances that young girls are living in but decide not to shine a light on these events due to the fact that they occur daily therefore deeming it not important and not worthy of showing on the news, which is a huge factor in the increasing number of prostitutes who are minors. Being a minor myself it is appalling to hear about girls having to live in such unfair predicaments. The media needs to show their stories to empower other people to donate and find ways to help girls in brothels and to prevent more girls entering the life of prostitution.

(Source: The Advocates for Human Rights)

Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn is a compelling novel that discusses women’s oppression. It shows real stories on how women were broken at a young age but were able to rebuild their lives or are in the process of doing so. Meena Hasina from Forbesgune, India was eight years old when she was kidnapped and was introduced to the world of sex trafficking. Her first buyer gave a large sum of money because she was still a virgin. Meena resisted and the money was returned to the man. Meena was repeatedly beaten, harder each time she resisted her buyers. The brothel owners began drugging her, resulting in one of the brothel owners raping her. She decided that at that point she was wasted and she gave up on fighting for her life. She stopped fighting the buyers and attempted suicide. There are two to three million prostitutes in India alone. China has almost 10 million prostitutes (Kristof and WuDunn, 5). What is almost as appalling as these statistics is that most of these illegal brothels don’t allow the use condoms (Kristof and WuDunn, 6), which easily transmits STD’s and can also impregnate girls in the brothel.

Meena herself gave birth in the brothel but her children were taken from her and she was not allowed to see them. After being released from the brothel she rescued her children.  Girls like Meena usually have none or poor education and are peasants so not much is done to stop these brothels or prevent other girls like Meena from being kidnapped and sold into brothels as well.  People in power often view street children to be criminals and see them as a disruption to the way cities are run (Rurevo and Bourdillon). Young girls are viewed as a nuisance in society and that they’re better off without them roaming around, causing enslaved girls to have less of a chance of rescue and less hope for safety for girls who have not yet to be sold into prostitution.

(Source: Bad at Sports)

Meena’s predicament and sex trafficking  as a whole is a situation  that many people feel empowered to want to reach out but don’t know where to begin. Although the United States isn’t doing much to help in the situation there are some tremendous organizations that have action plans to combat sex trafficking. The International Justice Mission and Say NO focus their time and money on finding new ways to raise awareness for women’s rights.  Say NO is an organization that allows for people of all ages to unite with large groups of people and take action. When visiting their website you can find lists of events that are taking place to help raise money to combat violence against women. Anyone one is able to join what they call an “action” and not only donate money but raise awareness and be able to get closer to abolishing sex trafficking.