Nicolas Kristof on helping victims of sex trafficking
I'll spend a dollar for the New York Times just to see what Nicolas Kristof is writing about. That's how much I respect this Pulitzer Prize winning columnist. On the road year after year, he files from places like Darfur and Cambodia - exposing me to the insane injustice and evil at work in the world far away from the headlines. You probably care too, or you wouldn't be bothering with my blog.
Besides his twice a week columns, Kristof runs a blog, and he just put up his list of effective organizations that fight sex trafficking world wide. In case you never heard of it - this is about young women and girls (or, less commonly, boys) sold or kidnapped into brothels to face a life of unending, chained ghastliness and likely death from AIDS. Maybe because I'm the father of three girls, this issue is very big on the radar for me and I've often pondered what I could do beyond writing a check. I still don't know, but for now, the check writing alternative seems worth pursuing...
Here's Kristof's endorsements, with his comments...
ECPAT, an international network of groups that traditionally focus on children prostituted in Asia.
International Justice Mission, a Washington-based group that has an Evangelical Christian base and has been particularly active (and effective) in Cambodia.
Vital Voices, which is based in Washington and addresses global women’s issues.
Equality Now, based in New York and also focused on gender equality around the world.
Daywalka Foundation, Kristoff is a big fan of this org, which emphasizes using legal maneuvers to shut down traffickers.
For resources, he recommends HumanTrafficking.org and MTV has a Web site.
And Kristoff says you can’t do better than supporting New Light Foundation, a tiny operation in a red light slum in Calcutta, India. He says its founder, Urmi Basu, is truly a heroic figure.
In Cambodia, where Kristof has posted some riveting articles, he's a huge fan of American Assistance for Cambodia, a "small and very efficient aid group". He says "AAFC works on trafficking but its biggest programs are promoting education, the idea being that it’s more cost-effective to educate girls and keep them out of brothels than to try to rescue and rehabilitate them afterward."
Besides his twice a week columns, Kristof runs a blog, and he just put up his list of effective organizations that fight sex trafficking world wide. In case you never heard of it - this is about young women and girls (or, less commonly, boys) sold or kidnapped into brothels to face a life of unending, chained ghastliness and likely death from AIDS. Maybe because I'm the father of three girls, this issue is very big on the radar for me and I've often pondered what I could do beyond writing a check. I still don't know, but for now, the check writing alternative seems worth pursuing...Here's Kristof's endorsements, with his comments...
ECPAT, an international network of groups that traditionally focus on children prostituted in Asia.
International Justice Mission, a Washington-based group that has an Evangelical Christian base and has been particularly active (and effective) in Cambodia.
Vital Voices, which is based in Washington and addresses global women’s issues.
Equality Now, based in New York and also focused on gender equality around the world.
Daywalka Foundation, Kristoff is a big fan of this org, which emphasizes using legal maneuvers to shut down traffickers.
For resources, he recommends HumanTrafficking.org and MTV has a Web site.
And Kristoff says you can’t do better than supporting New Light Foundation, a tiny operation in a red light slum in Calcutta, India. He says its founder, Urmi Basu, is truly a heroic figure.
In Cambodia, where Kristof has posted some riveting articles, he's a huge fan of American Assistance for Cambodia, a "small and very efficient aid group". He says "AAFC works on trafficking but its biggest programs are promoting education, the idea being that it’s more cost-effective to educate girls and keep them out of brothels than to try to rescue and rehabilitate them afterward."
Labels: Simple Justice
posted by Christopher Newton at 7:23 AM
10 Comments:
It seems much of this issue comes from the horrendous inequalities still existing in many parts of our world. Human beings, unfortunatley mostly men in power positions, perpetuating not only gender inequalities, but simply treating other human beings as commodities and objects rather than the wonderfully created people that we are.
I think inequality sometimes comes about because of ones' own insecurities and a lack of self-worth. I can't imagine that it makes anyone feel any better, subjugating others, but I'm sure they get something out of it.
Maybe a name that describes the sense of domination and control, something like "Warren Jeffs Syndrome" would help. Then people might look up and say, "Oh. I get it now."
I also feel strongly about this issue. Aside from being a woman I'm originally from a poor country and used with hearing stories that break one's heart. I've heard of stories of sex trafficking in Romania. They don't fill up the news like in the 90's - now they've been replaced by stories of domestic abuse - but I'm sure they haven't entirely disappeared. The links you provided are very useful, thank you for posting them.
Education. If young girls are aware, even slightly, to the dangers of these predators...I like THAT plan! I can't stand the thought of this horror. Very often, as I lay awake at night,I pray for girls everywhere because this is real!. I even pray for the men...after I calm down.
Many countries don't even recognize this as a "crime". Figure that out if you can. However,sex tourists, as they're called, are being apprehended and returned and charged in their own countries.
Cambodia is clamping down on men traveling to the country to commit sexual offenses against children.
As Governments get involved, things may begin to change. The tragic truth though, is that many high profile people in these countries, are behind this very lucrative "trade". Once again, money!
I barely know how to begin this, but I will try.
I ABSOLUTELY agree it is abominable to degrade and destroy children this way.
However, I feel I must raise the question about "sex-industry workers" in general. Because my own moral code says that sexuality is something extremely intimate and sacred to be shared only within the confines of marriage, the whole idea of prostitution is abhorrent to me...
Still, I have heard it argued that so long as it is limited to ADULTS who are making the choices themselves, NOT kids, NOT people manipulated or compelled by others seeking to exploit...that grown ups should have the right to "sell their body" in a sexual way just as much as those who sell their strength to dig ditches or those who sell their manual dexterity through data entry or those who sell their endurance on factory assembly lines.
What do you think?
It just feels WRONG to me, but recognizing not everyone shares my values about sexuality I am not quite sure what to think of this argument.
God has given Mankind "free-will." God does not block the exercise of free-will in men (call it man's "right," if you prefer). However it is twisted thinking to imply that whatever man does, or thinks, through exercising his God-given free-will, that this is being permitted by God. Yes, God permits free-will and allows free-will to be expressed. But it is not God's Will, per se, that men and women use this free-will to express anger, hate, suspicion, fear, anxiety, lust, covetness, deception, etc.
Botheration, Belle, I'd been hoping you would set me straight on exactly that issue. I've been struggling to write a piece on prostitution this morning, but realize I have to sort out my own ambivalence and conflicted feelings on the issue before I can write it.
Prostitution is a screwed up way (so to speak) for a woman (or man) to have to earn a living. But economic necessity has prompted and funded that decision back at least as far as the story of Tamar in Genesis.
I am conflicted. Seems like prositution is most often just another example of the powerful exploiting the weak and hungry, like Leo said. No different than Industrial Revolution factories sucking up child laborers and spitting out their bodies.
Still - yuh gotta eat. That's the reason there are so many ordinary, untrafficked prostitutes and cooch dancers in places like Thailand. They're sending money home to the family. It's a crummy world where someone has to sell their body to eat, but the world IS a crummy, unjust place.
Anyway - I have not sorted this out - so I guess I'm not ready to write about it.
Personally, I wished NO ONE ever felt they had to do ANYTHING demeaning, degrading or nasty in order to earn a living. But having worked a few truly crummy jobs in resturaunts and phone soliciting and the like before I was blessed with an education, I know all too well that MANY people do work every day that they feel dehumanizes them - even if they get to keep al their clothes on.
I think, for me, THAT is the issue - how to create a world where we are all more honoring of each other, not who inserts tab A into slot B for what price.
I quite agree...this thread DID start with the issue of exploitation. But just like not all prostitution is based on exploitation, not all exploitation is based on sex.
In his book "Disposable People", Kevin Bales addresses the widespread problem of modern slavery that is going on RIGHT NOW is many parts of the world, including North America. Some of that involves sexual exploitation, to be sure, (such as the rampant sex slavery in Thailand.) But there is a lot that is not...such as the charcoal makers in Brazil and all too many domestic servants right here in the USA and Canada... held captive and forced to work without pay, not allowed contact with the outside, kept under threat of violence.
There is indeed much evil in the world.
Whether it occurs between husbands and wives, parents and children, or among total strangers, when one being deliberately inflicts cruelty on another it impacts us all, whether we can stand to face and confront it or must turn our heads away.
What I admire about Pig is his willingness to keep looking, even when what he sees makes him sick to witness. It's so much easier to say "I can't do anything to change it, so why focus on that?" Too many avert their attention from that which makes them uncomfortable. I believe t is only through prolonged focus that solutions can be found. First we must be aware of and fully acknowledge a problem in order to take any action to address it. So Pig definitely wins kudos for helping to bring some important issues out into the open.
The flip side, however, is that there is also tremendous beauty and magnificent acts of kindness and generosity going on. There is amazing good in the world, which is every bit as real, valid, and worthy of notice as the deplorable atrocities. It’s all a question of balance…
The San Francisco Chronicle did a great series called "Diary of a Sex Slave" you can read here
http://sfgate.com/sextrafficking/
...if i did that right!! I found it on sfgate.com.
-Angi
Thanks Angi. I'm going to look it up and read it.
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