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Saturday, October 22, 2011

Modern Day Slave Trade

I have just watched the first part of the human trafficking documentary, Not My Life, created by Robert Bilheimer. It was shown on CNN. I have been remiss. I actually learned about human trafficking in a class I had during my Populations at Risk for Mental Health Disorders in nursing school. However, getting caught up in the NCLEX, finding a job, and surviving the first few months of the job I finally was able to bag, I lost sight of what is really important. How could I let myself become consumed by trivial challenges in my privileged life when there a tens of millions of people who are being starved, beaten, and exploited almost every single hour of their lives? Especially when the majority of these people are younger than me, many of them younger than me by 10-20 years (I'm 23). According to the documentary (which got it's facts from sources such as the US Government and many non-profit agencies) the human trafficking trades spans across all 190 countries in the world, even within our own. Many of the victims are exploited sexually and some people are forced to do physically crippling labor for 16-20 hours a day, 6-7 days a week. Many victims are forced to be soldiers and sent to the very heart of battle, are even forced to kill their own parents and family members to dehumanize as soon as possible. 


How is this possible? It's almost 2012 and this is happening in every country. It is because there is a market for these people and the abusers; the cruel, heartless, soulless individuals who profit from this sick industry; spend less than half the time in jail when caught, than they would if they had engaged in dealing drugs. Governments are effectively stating that selling drugs is worse than selling people. 


Please, please if you can, go to notmylife.org, watch the second part of the film tomorrow on CNN at 9 PM eastern time, and if anyone wants to help me join in the fight let's find a way to end this tragedy. Let's start a group, or travel the world and buy someone and give them a place to live and get them a job and help get them US citizenship or something. Please. 

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