Human trafficking, sex trafficking, all these terrible destinies you can read about. They concern all of us, sometimes just for a moment and other times they continue echoing in the head, not seldom when I meet my young female relatives or hug my daughters. They smile so beautifully and greet every day with confidence and trust. I sunbathe in the glow of their smiles.
That also brings my thoughts to my own life and what I dreamed of and still dream of with strong elements of freedom, love and happiness. Suddenly the contrast between my life, the people I love, my dreams and those people, mostly young girls and women whose dreams are broken, becomes striking.
Solidarity is a term I have a lot of respect for even though I can think it has become a cliché and seems to belong to the past, a time I have difficulties relating to. The contrast between my life and the fate of the sex slaves brings up emotions of solidarity among the most of us. Even when the word itself seems to be outdated. Words come and go but emotions stay. After a while the every day life takes over and sex trafficking becomes just one of plenty tragedies that continues to echo in my head while I focus on my own happiness. Its there I want to stop now. My happiness doesn´t seem to be dependent on other people getting a better life? And that’s the way it is. Sex trafficking is not just a terrible violation of another human being, it affects us all. The phenomenom of sex trafficking itself is an insult to my own freedom and your freedom.
Where do we end up if we by not acting out allow sex trafficking and slavery to gain even more footing in our so-called modern societies. It is going to affect us all when we gradually sink in the same pace by giving up. Our values get eroded and leave space for despair and fatalism. This also applies to those men who can buy themselves a stolen satisfaction and move on with the hunt of their own happiness.
The National Police recently gave a picture of how human trafficking looks like in Sweden, “människohandeln för sexuella ändamål 2009” where it is desribed how Nigerian women are forced into prostitution in order to pay of fictious depts and are controlled by their pimps after they have been through religious rituals with elements of voodoo in order to scare them to obedience. Women from Thailand work in Thai massage parlors as prostitutes. Even people with mental disabilities have become victims of sex trafficking. These are things we have been able to read about in the media.
Apparently there are many sex buyers who take advantage of the helpless living situations of these young girls and women. Detective inspector Kajsa Wahlberg, who is also one of the authors of the RPS`s report, tells us that the sex buyers should realize how wrong it is to use these young girls and women for their own needs. She calls them ruthless men. I personally would like to call them for men with neither dreams or self-respect.
The women are supposed to seem independent.
The trafficked women are mainly sold on the internet´s escort sites. We are supposed to get the impression that the women are the ones who publish the ads themselves while in the reality its the pimps who do that. The most vulnerable and disadvantaged women and girls are violated: those from minority groups or those who have a difficult background of abuse and social bias. The report also shows that the human traffickers are mostly men, but also a few women, not seldom from eastern European countries, Nigeria and Thailand. Human trafficking is also related to other crimes such as drug dealing and theft.
None was prosecuted for human trafficking year 2009. 12 people were prosecuted for pimping or attempt/aiding to pimping.
I can only interpret this as there remains to be plenty of steps to take..
I read somewhere that animals in general don´t have an idea about the future. They just adjust to the present. Luckily we humans don´t only have the will but also a hope and a striving for a better future and a world that is waiting to be shaped. Right?