Traffic(k)

   Something the other night proved extremely disturbing and confusing.  Let's start with the number $100 billion.  It's a big number, and even larger when you consider that the number represents only the profits and not the expenses.  What company makes that?  Not Nike.  Not Microsoft.  Not Starbucks or Google.  In truth, that figure represents more profit than all of those companies combined.  And it comes from selling teenage children.  Sex trafficking is big business (although still not as profitable as gun sales or drug sales), and the average age of a kidnapped child is truly that, a child at 12-14.  They are put into the fold almost immediately and what's worse (in my opinion) is that there is a steady crowd of men waiting and willing to pay to use and abuse them.  All of this emerged (again) in a book and resulting film, Trafficked.  Said the author and screenwriter, Siddharth Kara: Males across the world treat women’s bodies as transactional -- something to be used, bought, and sold.  Female bodies are also often treated as currency, be it as spoils of war, or in exchange for consideration of some other kind.  One of the most shocking and disheartening revelations of my research for Sex Trafficking is that the farther I went into many corners of the developing world, I could not escape the truth that hundreds of millions of women lived in a world that utterly disdained them.  Women were treated like sexual chattel, and they were met with intense violence, antipathy, and the destruction of their lives at every turn -- and it was always a function of the stark imbalances between the rights and power of males versus females.  But these imbalances exist in the developed world as well.  They may not always be as stark, but women in the West are also treated as sexual chattel, and are met on a daily basis with violence, antipathy, and the destruction of their lives due to power imbalances with males.  

   The movie features Ashley Judd in a villainous role, although in real life she is one of the strongest fighters working to both expose and end human trafficking.  Her book All That is Bitter & Sweet talked of her own sexually abusive upbringing, a cause she still works tirelessly to resolve.  She joins other actresses such as Reese Witherspoon, Oprah Winfrey, Lady Gaga and more who suffered sexual abuse at an early age.  This subject of childhood trafficking has been done before in films such as Stolen, Caged No More and others.  But this current film reminds us that the problem still exists and is actually on the rise throughout the world.  From Dubai to Thailand, the U.S. to India, no nation or country is immune to the exploitation of becoming an indentured slave or a sexual prisoner.   But what might prove worse is the end consumer, the construction, hotel and farm companies that use their labor, or the "johns" who frequent the streets and brothels to find a child or teen to carry out their insecurities as males.  Penalties are few and the business is growing; and for the children so trapped the future is bleak.  Politician, parent, priest, or evangelical crusader, the adult world seems as silent on the issue of child and teen exploitation as it is on gun control.

   So why jump to the issue of guns?  Because there was another disturbing article in Bloomberg Businessweek on the massive sales of the Brazilian gun manufacturer, Taurus, and how their guns are apparently proving defective.  That's bad enough, their guns sometimes firing when dropped or when secured in a holster, all while the safety is on (this has resulted in many deaths and injuries but sales continue at a rapid pace due to its low pricing); but as with the children being sexually abused over and over, what might be even worse about the gun issue is that Congress has made sure that even a defective gun cannot be recalled.  As the article states: Why did the government let them sell those guns?...The simple answer is that no government entity has the power to police defective firearms or ammunition in America -- or even force gunmakers to warn consumers.  The Consumer Product Safety Commission can order the recall and repair of thousands of things, from toasters to teddy bears.  If a defective car needs fixing, the U.S. Department of Transportation can make it happen.  The Food and Drug Administration deals with food, drugs, and cosmetics.  Only one product is beyond the government’s reach when it comes to defects and safety: firearms.  Not even the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives can get defective guns off the market.  If a gunmaker chooses to ignore a safety concern, there’s no one to stop it.  Not even the NRA (the National Rifle Association) will issue a warning about the Taurus guns despite having written articles about defects in guns made by other manufacturers.  As it turns out the head of the NRA, a group feared by Congress, is quite good friends with the head of the U.S. arm of Taurus.

   To a child or a teenager, this inaction by such supposedly responsible adults must seem not only puzzling but morally indefensible; the speeches sound good on the news but it appears that the "walk the talk" isn't happening.  Shootings in schools continue and there is no action.  Coca farmers seeking change in Columbia are being killed at an accelerated rate (even those who are advocating for peace in the country, said a report on NPR).  Runaway and kidnapped young sons and daughters continue to unwillingly walk the streets.  And the demand for such "goods" remains strong...keep the guns, drugs and sex with minors coming.  And since the adults with the power to invoke change appear unwilling to make any changes to the status quo, many of the teens are now taking things into their own hands, organizing protests, letting politicians know that they will soon be of voting age and letting retailers know that they have both the money to spend as well as the power to boycott.  And not just teens but many women as evidenced by movements across the spectrum against those "in power."

    TIME featured an essay by former President Barrack Obama, addressing todays student protesters: America’s response to mass shootings has long followed a predictable pattern.  We mourn.  Offer thoughts and prayers. Speculate about the motives.  And then --even as no developed country endures a homicide rate like ours, a difference explained largely by pervasive accessibility to guns; even as the majority of gun owners support commonsense reforms-- the political debate spirals into acrimony and paralysis.  This time, something different is happening.  This time, our children are calling us to account...by bearing witness to carnage, by asking tough questions and demanding real answers, the Parkland students are shaking us out of our complacency.  Some would say that it's about time, not the magazine but about our indifference.

    To the youth of today, especially those on the streets or trapped in a life of bondage and servitude, the reasons being given sound hollow...a last grasp for dominance, a hidden incestual desire, a quest to "prove" their manhood, a denial that they're old.  As syndicated columnist Mark Shields commented about our Congress, it is simply "moral cowardice."  In their heart of hearts --those either performing and paying for such acts, or those refusing to enact or enforce laws against such acts, or even those just buying a packet of cocaine that keeps the Columbian cartels thriving-- they must know that what they are doing is morally devastating, that the child they are penetrating could be their granddaughter, that their repeated actions are probably irreversibly ruining lives, that their actions or inactions are setting horrible examples for those who might mistakenly look up to them.  Okay, get me off of my high horse; this is all my opinion but overriding all of this is also my hope.  A hope that my generation which was also full of promise and change can successfully emerge  this time, that politics and attitudes and moral fiber can change for the better, even knocking down age-old traditions as witnessed by the recent vote in Ireland.  It takes youth and the young to bring a fresh perspective, to push aside older generations and take a stand and say this is right or wrong.  My generation might not agree and might not like the changes, just as my parents likely didn't care for what was happening as they watched me grow.  It was a new and for those set in their ways, a disturbing trend.  Back in that period of protesting the Vietnam war and holding demonstrations, a harmonic group called The Association (think of their hits, Cherish and Wendy) also had a song that pretty much went nowhere, but stuck with me.  Their words of Enter the Young echoed that change in a way that seems to resonate today: ...here they come, some with questions, some decisions...some with facts and some with visions of a place to multiply without the use of divisions, to win a prize that no one's ever won.  Enter the young...yeah, they've learned to think...more than you think they think; not only learned to think but to care; not only learned to think but to dare.  As the futuristic Star Trek captain would say, "Make it so."
 

Addendum:  Despite the gloomy outlook of this post, there are many groups worldwide working to try and end the complicated issue of child trafficking.  A good place to get an overview of just how convoluted and complicated this issue is comes from the page and links at Wikipedia, a good jumping point if you wish to delve further into this subject.