Sexual Slavery, a local issue too.

Sexual slavery is an awful thing. I do believe it is hypocritical of today’s society, especially American society to condemn the African slave trade while slavery continues to thrive today. One of the major reasons the general public is misinformed about this issue is the lack of media coverage. Due to the nature of our class assignment, the group presenting on this issue did not choose a Western author, and therefore, we are reading about the unfortunate stories of young girls in locations which are highly remote to many of us. Not saying this lessens the moral issue of the problem, but it may create this false idea of immoral people living elsewhere and belonging to another culture. It creates an illusion of this issue not occurring locally and under our noses.

It is important to know that sexual slavery, as hinted by the texts, transcends any and all borders. Sexual slavery thrives in the US as much as it does in Cambodia and India. One of the largest events to generate sexual slavery is the super bowl, however many people who praise this event are not aware of the amount of human trafficking this event generates. This past super bowl, girls as young as thirteen were busted as prostitutes. When speaking to a FBI agent, he informed me that many girls are recruited into sexual slavery at the King of Prussia mall. How many of us stop to think about this? Most of us are familiar with this mall, yet we are unaware of this tragedy occurring right before us. Pimps target young girls with low self-esteem and who yearn for the material objects others have. Through psychological tactics they promise the girls large sums of money and offer them a lifestyle difficult to resist. A young girl easily falls prey to this illusion and after time finds herself caught in an abusive and dangerous lifestyle.

I used to work at the King of Prussia mall and am sure I met a pimp. I was on break one day and he asked to sit at my table. I said I was fine with it and continued to play on my phone. This man began conversing with me, he seemed extremely outgoing and charismatic and I found myself chatting with him. After a couple of minutes some of his questions seemed strange to me and I excused myself and went on my way. Of course I could have been misjudging this man, but I believe an essential tool in combatting sexual slavery is knowing when to flag potential pimps and educating women to avoid these men and women. This is especially important at the local level. The difficulty with sexual slavery is that there are many layers to it. We need to teach our girls and women to value themselves, we need society to support this message and support our girls. Combating sexual slavery on an international level is essential yet must be done carefully. As Nicholas Kristoff pointed out, simply buying the slaves out of slavery is not enough to eliminate the systematic problem, especially in cultures where the girls are shamed after being prostitutes.

 In an era of sexual tourism and mail-order brides, sexual slavery has become more accessible. We can see technology aiding in sexual slavery but also combating it. I recently read an article about Tinder and the Irish police forces working together to create a profile of a normal looking woman, but then as a person swipes to look at the woman’s photos, he or she finds a blurb on how to potentially identify a victim of sexual slavery. These technological advances are a step into a better direction, yet as with anything and everything, we must understand the cultural norms before fixing the problem.