Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Interest in Sex Trafficking

I think that the thing that first got me started on sex trafficking was when I was in Paris 3 summers ago. My dad, stepmom, best friend and I went on a few week vacation to europe and visited some of my dad's friends in the process. Katie and I wanted to see the Eiffel Tower so my dad called up one of his good friends who lived in Paris and arranged for us to meet up with him. We ate dinner in the Eiffel Tower and walked around outside a little while and eventually it was too late to take the subway back to where the friends' house was. We decided to catch a cab. My dad always told me of this park in Paris where he always went everytime he was there. He asked the cab to drive by it so that I could see it, even though it was extremely dark outside. As we were driving down this street, which had huge trees hanging over either sides and bushes that were about 15 feet back off of the sidewalk, I started to notice something. There were people in the bushes moving. It took me a while, but the park was huge and I quickly figured out that the people in the bushes were prostitutes and the people who were on the curbs were customers. My dad explained that he had never been at the park at night and had no intention to take me to see prostitution up close and personal. I asked the taxi driver to pull over. He told me that there was not enough room to pick up a girl. I told him that I didnt want to pick up a girl, but to rather just give her some money and have a conversation. As we slowed down, near this group of girls, I was astonished. They were tiny and they looked to be about 15. At the time i was about the same age. I got out of the car and walked up to them with about 30 euros. It was my own money and i figured better to give it to someone who needed it and couldn't find some without doing something bad. I told the girls to split it amoungst themselves for something that they needed that wasn't drugs. One of the girls spoke english, so she translated for the rest and smiled. They spoke simple french to me, which I understood at the time. They asked my name and how old I was and why I was there etc. Eventually after about 10 minutes, my dad calls my name from a few feet away. I turn around and there is this man running towards the group of girls and me. The girls start to walk away, but their facial expression scared me. They looked terrified and looked at me as if I was bothering them. The man walked up to me as I was walking to the taxi and told me that if I wasn't interested, then I could leave. I never got the names of the girls or thier ages, but it was easy to tell that they were not much older than me. Most of them were not from Paris, much less France and it was obvious from their darker complections. It was hard to tell under a street light, but they looked ghastly thin and smelled like it does when you walk through Saks on a saturday and every tourist in the world is sampling perfume. My dad explained to me the way back that the girls were probably not from Paris and the man that came up to us was their boss. His job was to keep business moving and I was stopping customers from picking up the girls. When I got back, I started doing some research on sex trafficking and I could not believe everything that I found. It was 10 times worse than I imagined. These girls are my age and even as young as my boyfriends youngest sister, and it just astonishes me that this happens. Its hard because I knew that I couldn't save the girls in the park and I think about them from time to time. I felt that I was talking to my friends back home, only these were girls forced to have sex with men day in and day out with little protection, if lucky. They didn't get much to eat and I hope to this day that the money I gave them didn't go to drugs. It's horrible to say, but if it did go to drugs, then I hope that the drugs helped them not feel the pain because what they are put through is torture and must be stopped.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

International Idea- Citizen Participation in Government

I chose the countries Brazil,Cambodia,Columbia,Guam,Italy,Kuwait,Nigeria, and of course the US. I think that compared to other countries, the US is definitely has the highest rating for involving citizens in the decisions of their government but the voter turnout ratings shocked me. This only makes sense because this notion of voting and a democracy is what the US was founded on. Brazil was first in my search. It had the highest percentage of voters who turned out. The countries Kuwait, Italy, Guam, and Cambodia do not have any statistics meaning that their people cannot vote or did not turn out at all. I am surprised that Italy didn't have a percentage at all.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Living Democracy Blog Post

I have chosen my issue to be Human Trafficking. I think that even though it is more commonly practiced in Asia and Africa, there are girls that are being forced into it here. I think that awareness on sex trafficking could be increased. I noticed in Dallas, when the softball team was there, that in our hotel there was a sign. It read something along the lines of, "Human Trafficking is a crime, Please call the police if you have any suspicions". This was just a politically correct sign that summarized, "if you see any prostitutes, call this number, it’s illegal. I think that it is a very serious issue because it is children who are being most affected. Young girls and teenagers are being taken from their vacation spots and shipped halfway across the world before their parents even have time to report their abductions. The people running the kidnapping and shipping tell the girls who are disobedient, that there is a better life for them and the less educated girls who are poor believe them and go along willingly. If the girls don’t comply, they are physically grabbed and thrown into cars that take them to the place that they are shipped from. There are places, even in New Orleans, where sexual acts by young girls are encouraged and if there is anyone who thinks that prostitution of underage girls doesn't happen in New Orleans, they are crazy. Most people think that it can never happen to their families but more and more stories are popping up in the news and each of the stories carries the same common theme: young girl, moderately attractive, who was last seen in a public place and then vanished. The government has fairly accurate ideas of who is running these operations and they should try and stop this. In the long run, there are unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, rapes and murders, not to mention that it boosts the drug industry because all of the girls are forced to take drugs to be more willing to their customers. They are under the impression that they can earn their way outs of their imprisonment by working long days with very little breaks in between customers. These girls develop addictions such as sex addictions and drug addictions. They are fed very little food because the men prefer the girls to be small.
The government needs to step in and help these girls. There needs to be safe houses where these girls can go if they escape that will help them get back on their feet. The government should try and take down these men who run the operations in a way that can secure the girls a way to escape. The more people are educated about this issue the higher awareness will be and maybe we can slow down the line graph that charts the statistics of how many girls are taken a year.