I read with great interest the New York Times article detailing Michelle Obama’s lineage from slave and slave owner. The article follows the history of her descendant, Melvinia Shields. Melvinia was born into slavery and inherited by new owners at the age of six. At the age of fifteen she had a child fathered by a white man, presumably someone in the Shield’s family.
I used to read about slavery in the detached and distant way that history afforded me. I was comforted in the fact that slavery was an atrocity of our past, that we were better as a people than we were five generations ago. But I was wrong. Modern day slavery is a thriving global criminal business. Human trafficking and childhood sexual slavery is the third largest criminal trade, behind only drug and weapon trafficking. It is a $9.5 billion business. Its victims are from every part of the globe and are as young as five years of age.
Allow me to draw a comparison in order to paint a horrifying truth. Melvinia Shield, age six, was valued at $475 in 1850, which is approximately $13,500 in today’s currency. Today, a girl as young as five can be being sold into sexual slavery for as little as $10. No ... that is not a typo: ten U.S. dollars. A human life for what amounts to a few mornings worth of Starbucks, lunch at Chipotle, or a t-shirt at Old Navy. This same young girl will have a life of being raped by countless men, starved and tortured. She will face the very real risk of contracting AIDS, TB, hepatitis and other deadly illnesses. She will be forced to ingest drugs, witness murder and live in conditions most of us would consider unfit for animals. And through it all, she will be required to work. She’ll work until she can work no longer ... and what end do we imagine she will find then?
It doesn’t have to be this way, however. There are a growing number of warriors in the fight against human trafficking and sexual slavery. Some, like Somaly Mam, are survivors of sexual slavery; others, like Bill Livermore, James Pond and Bradley Myles, are national and international leaders of organizations fighting to bring an end to human trafficking—providing rescue and rehabilitation to survivors and shaping U.S. policy; even film producers and actors like Guy Jacobson and Ron Livingston deliver this reality straight to our hearts; others, like me, add our voices to the refrain that calls for an end to human trafficking. We join together to bring awareness; we believe that through awareness and education, we can achieve true abolition for those still in the shackles of slavery.
Perhaps you are wondering what you can do? Start by visiting the Web sites that I have linked below. Educator yourself. Know that it happens in Cambodia, but it also happens in Charlotte, NC, Portland, OR, and Denver, CO. Be outraged, disgusted, horrified. When you think that you can’t bear to learn the truth, learn it anyway. Understand the difference between sexual expression and sexual exploitation. Refuse to glamorize “pimps”—see them for who they truly are: rapists and slave holders. And, finally, even if you never join an organization, write a check or volunteer—have a conversation. Add your voice to the refrain that cries for an end to human trafficking and sexual slavery.
Please visit these Web sites to learn and take action:
www.somaly.org
www.polarisproject.org
www.transitionsglobal.org
