During winter semester, I had a chance to go to a forum on campus. I didn't really know what it was about, but I really like trying to cram in as many interesting things as I can, and on our campus that is pretty easy to do. The forum was titled, 'Global Understanding and Activism' and that sounded intriguing to me, so I decided to go. The professors began talking about the issue of modern day slavery. At the time I didn't realize that slavery had much relevance to our culture. However, as I listened, I began to understand how wrong I was. They talked about men and women all over the world who were trafficked for sex and forced labor everyday in our nation and in our neighborhoods. That was the first time that I had ever heard the number of 27 million slaves in the world today. 27 million! 27 million lives, 27 million faces, 27 million hearts, broken. It was overwhelming and difficult to conceptualize.
The story of Elizabeth Smart is one of the most familiar stories that we have of sex slavery, however, there are many women victimized every day. Granted, there are men and children, but the numberless women are the overwhelming majority. They each have their own stories of shattered hearts that go unheard. Within our own country there are thousands of women who are abused and tortured.
An organization that actively combats human trafficking is the Polaris Project. The organization has stated, “With 100,000 children estimated to be in the sex trade in the United States each year, it is clear that the total number of human trafficking victims in the U.S. reaches into the hundreds of thousands when estimates of both adults and minors and sex trafficking and labor trafficking are aggregated”.
An organization that actively combats human trafficking is the Polaris Project. The organization has stated, “With 100,000 children estimated to be in the sex trade in the United States each year, it is clear that the total number of human trafficking victims in the U.S. reaches into the hundreds of thousands when estimates of both adults and minors and sex trafficking and labor trafficking are aggregated”.
One of the most recent stories that I heard was surprisingly close to home for me. I grew up an hour outside of D.C. in a safe Virginia suburb. I was privileged to have incredible access to education and culture and most of the parents of the children that I went to school with were not only prominent leaders in our community, but also in the country. In all places, the FBI recently discovered a trafficking ring in the county next door to where I grew up and in the same county that I recently spent 3 months interning over spring term.
This is an excerpt from article about the case as reported from the National Public Radio:
"JOHNSON: In some cases, increasingly, the FBI is identifying criminal groups who are engaging in this activity. In the Northern Virginia area, there have been numerous recent criminal cases involving the MS-13 gang, sometimes, girls in very affluent communities, to try to lure them into this behavior and they get in way over their heads.
SAADA-SAAR: These gangs that used to sell drugs—and even along the same routes that they used to sell drugs, are now repurposing those routes, like I-95, Route 1, to sell the girls. And it makes sense because it's more profitable to sell the girl, right, because she's reusable as opposed to the drug, and there's very little risk to these individuals." (Finding And Stopping Child Sex Trafficking).
Isn't that chilling? ". . . she’s reusable . . ." Girls in my own neighborhood, objectified and stolen or manipulated from their homes to become a part of a life that is difficult to escape. It sounds so dehumanizing, and it is, but the scary part is that it's only the beginning. It's only one gang in one county. It was wonderful that the FBI was able to rescue 106 children from slavery and they arrested 156 pimps over the summer, but the remaining numbers, excuse me, the remaining souls are so staggering that it hardly seems like a dent.
I don't want to go too far into the horrors of trafficking in this post, but there are some links that I will include if you would like to learn more and have a deeper understanding of what it means to live in that sort of captivity. Many girls are brainwashed, most all of the girls are beaten daily and escape is nearly impossible, especially if there is no one to help them.
Some argue that Sexual Freedom creates trafficking, but I like what Chelsea Bakaitē, of the Women’s Studies Department on campus, said of the importance of this issue, “The female body is the main symbol for sex in America. It's important to me that women feel a part of their bodies as having full ownership. I think it's embedded in social thought (which also ties in with modesty rhetoric) that a woman's body isn't just her own, it also belongs to the gazer or the critic. Eating disorders, porn, myths about a woman's libido, the term ‘slut’, criticism of single mothers, public harassment, groping, and rape are all tied to the idea that a woman's body also belongs to those around her as an aesthetic/pleasurable instrument. I think this very much affects girl's and women's self-confidence and aspirations”.
So how do we give women, not only their bodies back, but how do we give them their souls back? Who will help these women to have strength to fight, and who will stand up to these men committing these atrocities? And how do we help women to step out from behind these mentalities that are degrading and damaging?
I think I have an 'I want to save the world' complex and I often want to change the injustices that I come upon, but in all solemnity, this situation of trafficking is a reality that we need to change and eliminate. Another powerful quote from the same article, "It's important to see this issue not really about vice, right, not about prostitution. This issue is about violence against our girls that plays out in this country. This issue is not disconnected from the statistic that one in four girls, by the time she reaches 18, will be sexually abused. There also are lost girls. They're girls who have not been claimed by their families, who have not been loved and we have to be able to see them, and we have to be able to recognize that they need support and not judgment” (Finding And Stopping Child Sex Trafficking).
While I was researching this topic and a few other related topics I had this realization: we are free, but not everyone is. This idea of slavery is nothing new. Our history is filled with tyranny, hatred, abuse and slavery. Even in the world today there are so many who are oppressed by their circumstances, and yet here we are in this land that is by far more free than many other countries. Here we are at this University with these incredible resources. How do we use what we have been given? How do we utilize our liberty to help those who are not free?
There are a myriad of ways that we can make a difference. This is a difficult subject because it seems so big and impossible to combat, however the reality is that we need to do something. We can’t let our anxiety towards the situation stop us from reaching out. We are free, but that does not mean that we should be content. I love the quote by Joseph Smith when he said, “A man filled with the love of God, is not content with blessing his family alone, but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race” (History of the Church, 4:227).
I don’t really have any one answer on how we can help, but I believe that as we are actively engaged in trying to learn, and involve ourselves we can do something.
The Polaris Project is just one of many organizations that fights against human trafficking. Their website offers a few different ways to get involved here:
BYU will be screening an important film about girls all over the world. ‘Half the Sky’ will be presented at the HRCB in room 238 in two parts on October 2 and October 3 at 7pm. You can join the facebook group here:
A really great Ted Talk about the realities of Human trafficking can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeOumyTMCI8
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs241/en/
A webpage created by the World Health Organization educates people about Female Genital Mutilation:
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs241/en/
Article and Illustration by Normandie Luscher
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