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The Living Room General Human Trafficking
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Human Trafficking
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This subject came to mind while I was reading Mike's thread about prostitution. In that thread I replied to Rhea's post:

I looked up prostitute in the dictionary just because I like to know the exact meaning of something before I start going on about it.
There are a few meanings for the word but they all revolve around this:
a person who willingly uses his or her talent or ability in a base and unworthy way, usually for money.
This could refer to bankers or politicians. Football coaches.
And how many among us have been pressured by circumstance to behave in a less than exemplary manner in order to keep food on the table or a roof over our heads (the check is in the mail syndrome).

Women and children forced into sex for the profit of others is not prostitution. The word applies to the people who are forcing them.

Human trafficking is something we don't talk about, it's too dark and scary but it's just about the oldest form of commerce.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/opinion/kristof-the-face-of-modern-slavery.html?ref=nicholasdkristof

We should talk about it. 

What say you?  The exploitation of humans by other humans is so prevalent as to be natural.  Is there a way out of it or around it?
Or is it something intrinsic to life? Like parasitism: a relationship in which a parasite obtains benefits from a host which it usually injures.
Prevalent does not make it natural, and many cultures have found ways to minimize exploitation, so there must be some agreement that it's not okay. Clearly, it's not the best part of human nature.  In my mind it's on a continuum from beneficial co-operation to cannibalism - quite a bit closer to the latter than the former - and I do believe that I'm not alone in my feelings of horrified disgust and outrage at the perpetrators.  
What to do though?
When it comes to sweatshop labour, I can inform myself and avoid products that will exploit others.  That gives me the sense that I am contributing to a much lesser extent to the suffering.  It isn't nearly enough, but it's all I know how to do.  There just isn't any way I can cut down on my consumption of sex and house slaves, since there wasn't any consumption to begin with, and I'm one of those people who is apologetic about telling people what to do, even when I'm paying them.  Slavery intrinsic to life?  No.  Humans function just fine without it.  I just don't get the slave master mind-set, and frankly - it frightens and angers me. 
While there is no sex tourism in the US, I can't be sure there isn't a woman locked up somewhere in my neighbourhood.  The fact that it's officially illegal here, makes it less prevalent, and more likely that a person can escape and ask for help.  To accept slavery, one can never clearly look at what it truly entails, can one?  It's easy to look away when it's people of another race and culture, a half a world away, but then, occasionally a person surfaces in Europe or the US who has been held in a basement or shed, and this has become their world.  I just took a moment to imagine what that might look like - if a person came up to me, and told me they just got away from someone who kept them locked up.  What would I do?  At least the person's captor cannot come forth to claim ownership, but in another country they might be able to.
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Latest Post: December 27, 2011 at 5:13 PM
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