Millions of people are enslaved. Today. 2008. Many are women and children, forced to have sex many times a day. Terrified of violent owners. Some as young as six.
My eldest daughter is six. She is snuggled on my husband’s knee right now, carefully reading aloud a story I wrote about her for her sixth birthday. She articulates the longer words, like ‘beautiful’ very slowly and clearly in her lovely sing-song voice. She smiles as she reads her own name in the story.
Some as young as four.
My four-year old daughter is snuggling next to me. Her skin is incredibly soft. Her shiny hair smells sweet and familiar. “Look, Mum, I have legs as long as you! I’m a big girl!” she says, stretching out her four-year-old legs next to mine.
A dozen little girls huddle together on a dirty couch. A single light bulb sheds pale, yellowy light their soft cheeks, their shiny hair. Their legs aren’t long enough to reach the dusty floor. Their ‘owner’ brings a man into the room..
I remember being four, and learning to ride a bike, my mother standing behind me to help keep me steady. She was so proud of me when I stayed up all by myself.
He doesn’t look at her face. He doesn’t see her beautiful brown eyes. He doesn’t know her name. He points at her, and she is pulled off the couch.
Posted in Prostitution, Slavery | 3 Comments »Two years ago I did an intense 18 credit course in which we looked at the history of “Indochina”–Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and specifically at the U.S. war down there and it’s aftermaths. One issue we looked at was the sex trade/trafficking in humans. Ever since that course, I’ve had this little question poking around in the back of my head: What are the implications and effects of the Iraq War with regards to this issue? Recently, this video gave me the beginnings of an answer. H/T to Jen
Posted in Prostitution, Slavery | 10 Comments »I fell in love with Chuyia, the charming, surly child protagonist in Deepa Mehta’s profoundly beautiful film, Water. In elemental, vivid surroundings, widows of all ages play out their disempowered lives in an ashram, compelled to make atonement for their husbands’ deaths. A fragile balance exists in the motion picture between despair and hope. I cried for half an hour after watching it.
Statistics about women and children forced into sexual relationships with men were given names and faces and endearing characters in Water. A space was created to grieve with and for them, to be deeply moved into desire for action, even if change appears impossible.
The story of the movie’s creation reflects the injustice it exposes. The day filming was to begin by the Ganges River in the Hindu holy city Varanasi, two thousand protestors destroyed the set, delaying work for three years and forcing Mehta to film Water in Sri Lanka rather than India.
Women and children are being raped as we surf the internet. Society, in the colonial India of 1938 depicted in Water, and throughout the world today, continues to give perpetrators the power and protection victims desperately need. Systems are in place, as the conflicts surrounding the filming of Water reveal, which are seemingly unmovable.
WHAT CAN WE DO?
Posted in Movie Reviews, Prostitution | 1 Comment »