human trafficking

Human Trafficking has come up in conversation twice in the last month, which I found ... not usual. It's a horrific topic, but one that should not be ignored. It seems to be, though. We all care about the war in Iraq, and the problems with the environment, and hungry children in India, but talk about Trafficking is ominously avoided. And yet we all know it goes on. People are abducted from their homes or countries and forced into slave labour or prostitution. Is this not as terrible?

It could be the fact that problems that affect mostly women (and female children) are notoriously given less importance, but I like to think we've mostly moved past this. Still, though. Human Trafficking has been called the fastest growing criminal industry in the world, which is a scary thought. Why is no one paying attention? It's not like there aren't victims from every country, every social class in the world. Anyone could be personally affected by this, and I've seen few people who really care.

I know they care, though. Just because awareness is down, does not mean that those who become aware continue to ignore the problems. And there are women like Somaly Mam who have made great impacts on the lives of many victims. Her website: http://www.somaly.org/

It scares me that this happens to so many people, and that we hardly ever hear about it. It scares me that there is a huge market for this. (Who are all these people paying for non-consentual sex? Really. Who? And how did they get like that?) What scares me most, though, is that we as a species - the instigators, the consumers, and the ones who have done nothing to fix this - seem to have fallen down again, and we might not be able to get out of this one either.