The Evils of Forced Sexual Slavery

By: Marsel Shaqja

“She said she was beaten ferociously to force her to smile and act seductive.” (Kristof, Nicholas) This quote was from an op-ed called “The Evil Behind the Smiles” by Nicholas D. Kristof. This op-ed was written by Nicholas to show people the evils of sex trafficking. She wrote about how they tortured her because she wouldn't smile to a man, and be seductive. She also talked about how people think that slavery was over a long time ago, but sex trafficking is the modernized version of slavery. “Women Are Silver, Women Are Diamonds: Conflicting Images of Women in the Cambodian Print Media” is an article written on JSTOR that talks about a lot of facts about sex trafficking in Cambodia. In the article, it said that virgins were most valuable. So the people who owned the brothels, often sewed their vaginas so that they would get more money out of them.

According to the U.S. State Department’s estimates 600,000 to 800,000 people are being sold into sex slavery yearly. (Kristof, Nicholas) This shows that sex trafficking is growing in alarming rates. Most of these people are female, and vary from the ages of 8 to 16. Women in Cambodia can’t even fight back because they have no power to fight back with. This is due to the fact that the Cambodian government has not taken much action towards women’s rights. And that is why it is an amazing thing to see people like Somaly Mam, a former sex slave that escaped from the brothels, take action against sex trafficking in such a successful way. But she is not the only one to escape from the brothels. “ At age 9, Srey Pov was able to dart away from the brothel and outrun the guard. She found her way to a shelter run by Somaly Mam, an anti-trafficking activist who herself was prostituted as a child.” (Kristof, Nicholas) As seen in this article, Somaly Mam is helping more and more innocent women get away from the brothels. As Somaly said in her book “The Road of Lost Innocence” she will not stop until this terrbile form of slavery stops.

(Sourcer: time.com)
This is Somaly Mam talking about sex
 trafficking at a press conference

People have to be inspired by somebody like Somaly Mam, who is doing everything in her power to stop sex trafficking. Even though one or two people can’t make much of a difference, hundreds and thousands and millions of people can. That is why people like Somaly Mam are amazing and inspiring. Even though they don’t have huge numbers of people supporting them, they do everything in their power to help.

Nicholas Kristof is a man who is trying to reach out to an army of people to help Somaly Mam in this fight to stop sex trafficking. He has made calculations that there are more girls and women getting sex trafficked then there were slaves during the slave trades. But people are treating it as if it is nothing, even though it is a huge thing.

Marsel Shaqja is a sixteen year old boy that attends Frank McCourt Highschool in Manhattan, New York. And he wants there to be a world where there is no pain and violence, and everybody is treated as an equal.