Comprehensive approach

Nikhil Nigam brings up a key point about this issue when he talks about rehabilitation of former sex slaves, seeming to advocate a more comprehensive approach.  He says that the problem with trying to help them is that it would be very hard for an NGO, for example, to supply them with what they really need.  He says that they need “not necessarily a special institution but a family.”  He also says that we must try to show the girls that what happened was not necessarily “their individual black fate,” as many presume, but a larger societal problem. 

In trying to stop human trafficking, it can be easy to become in so caught up in righteous anger that all one wants to focus on is getting the bad guys and waging a sort of war.  It is easy to forget sometimes that the reason we really want to fight this war is to help the victims, and change the culture surrounding the issue.  In order to be successful, we must attack this issue on many fronts – policing the prostitution rings themselves, caring for victims rather than just setting them free and leaving them to fend for themselves, and working to raise awareness of what is going on for potential customers.  This last part may seem strange, but because the girls are often trained to convince people that they are completely voluntary prostitutes, it is important.  This is not to say anything about the morality of visiting prostitutes in general, there are many people who would do that, but would not participate if they knew they were engaging with a sex slave.