Every year, hundreds of tourists flock to the city of Amsterdam in droves...not only as adventurers taking in the magnificent sights or rich culture of the Netherlands, but for the women lounging so scantily clad and ready to serve in the windows of it's infamous red light district.
Amsterdam is renowned as one of the world's hottest spots for sex tourism. The sex industry in the city is a billion dollar business all on it's own and has no signs of slowing down. However, many of the women who go into a life of prostitution there are not doing so by choice. As the video above insinuates, many of the women who go through the red light district are forced into sexual slavery through human trafficking. They are snatched and abducted, thrown into forced labor to compromise their bodies for hundreds of paying tourists that travel into the city each year. In fact, 80 percent of prostitutes are not EU citizens, most of them lead there through trafficking. They have no voice and a lot of times, no means of escaping.
Stop the Traffik is a community of various organizations stretching across the globe that strives towards marking an end to human trafficking. They weigh heavy on educating individuals about defining and identifying human trafficking, how to go about protecting oneself and others from falling under the practice, and how to report illicit activities that might save individuals who have been trafficked themselves. They also try to target law makers to exert their influence to stop the phenomenon as well as raise money to areas that are most affected. Children and women around the world are taken from their homes and families every single day to be forced into lives of physical labor, sex slavery and even subjected to human sacrifice and organ removal. Even though this practice is more wide spread in poorer countries, such as India and Indonesia, where parents might go as far as to sell their own children into slavery in order to survive, this doesn't mean that it isn't a world wide problem as it happens in far richer areas such as Europe and even here in the United States. It is one of the largest growing criminal businesses and it is second only to drug trafficking as the most profitable illegal industry in the world. In 2004, the total annual revenue for trafficking in persons were estimated to be between USD$5 billion and $9 billion. This still continues to expand and grow even today.
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| "Drawings by a 12 year old girl who was trafficked into the sex industry in Cambodia." |
A perfect example of the human trafficking of minors happening right here on our shores.
This also extends to how women and even young girls are hyper-sexualized, turned into objects in the eyes of men and revered only as tools of sexual satisfaction and pleasure. We see it every day in our media and it is so ingrained that humanity has gone so far as to allow this to continue to happen. Not only does hinder their development as children, it also puts them into risk by exploiting them as sexual objects and thus making them all the more desirable to men who partake in the services that human sex trafficking gives them
This heinous practice must come to an end; the exploitation of human bodies, the degradation of human life for the sake of profit. It is a reality that isn't too far off from possibly happening to not only our loved ones and our children, but to us as well. It happens all over the world and destroys so many lives, it is unfathomable. That is why there must be some kind of measures of prevention to be enforced, through contact with our law makers, through sharing these stories, making lengths to rescue these women and children and to make their voices heard in a way that they can not do on their own.
For more information about the organization, their movement and how you can involve yourself locally, please check out stopthetraffik.org and let your voice and their voices be heard.
Sources:
Stopthetraffik.org
Youtube
Polaris Project
Sexualization of Young Girls in the Media is Harmful, Catherine Paddock
Amsterdam Travel: Sex Tourism and Human Trafficking, Clarissa Cladwell
Wikipedia
There is a club here that is trying to make a difference to stop this from existing. I don't recall the name of the club but they set up a table here at Hunter trying to gain the attention of students and held a discussion about this.
ReplyDeleteYou could possibly get involved with them to help promote this. This is just sick and sadly it goes on all over the world.
I really appreciate that you made a connection to the sex trade and the sexualization of women in media because they both have something in common, as you said, it objectifies women. It makes it seem like we only serve one purpose, to satisfy male sexual appetite. The other day I had a conversation with a guy, who claims that women want so much from men and all that men will be happy with is a women naked..
ReplyDeleteAt first it bothered me that he believes a women wants a cook, a made, a carpenter, to be rich and sucessful, etc. because I'm pretty sure I can be all those things for myself and don't need a man for that. But then that all that satisfies a man is a naked woman?
Yet again is that constant theme of women being sexual objects. This is why trafficking is so high, because the men who partake don't respect the female body. And it is repulsive that some parents sell their own daughters into the sex trade. The overall morilty of the sex trade is that there is none. I wonder how far does it have to go in order to put this to an end.