In Tucson, there is a road called “Miracle Mile” that connects to I-10, running at a diagonal to the major roads on the South East side of town. 30 years ago, that strip of road was full of hotels and motels, lodges and tourists traps. Now, most of it lies vacant and boarded up, crouching behind locked chain-link fences and littered parking lots. Close to the intersection of Oracle Road and Miracle Mile is the “No-Tel Mo-Tel”, that advertises “Rooms by the Hour” and “Wa-Wa Beds”. I passed this intersection every day going to work, and began to recognize the walks, if not the faces, of women who were “getting off shift,” going to the bus stops. This time of day, I never saw young girls, only older-looking women. At the time, I never thought about if I could help those women change those circumstances, as I was so caught up in my own life.
Tucson is only a few hours away from the Mexican border and high numbers of illegal immigrants provide an unending supply for local domestic, labor, and sex markets. Undocumented workers are cheap, don’t require paperwork, and disappear easily. Human coyotes make enormous profits from smuggling people across the Mexican border into the United States. Those people are almost always poor, and have left behind their entire family or support system. It is relatively easy to keep these people in a prison of social isolation, sometimes in conditions akin to slavery.
Society has a hard time differentiating between “illegal aliens” and victims of human slavery. There are programs and resources available for victims of slavery, if only they can learn about them, and if only society can reach out to help them. I don’t think the solution is to deport everyone who entered illegally, especially those who are victims of abuse or kidnapping, and I don’t think it’s fair to send people back to the same situations that drove them to leave their country in the first place.
Solutions:
1) I would educate and empower men, women, and children, to rise above abusive cultural norms.
2) People would take responsibility to reach out to those who might be vulnerable or in distress, and help them find the resources they need. Raising public awareness and social responsibility through public outreach, the media, and grassroots organizations.
3) I would rid economies and governments of economic exploitation. I’m not sure how to do this, and I’m not interested in fighting over logistics, and the merits of capitalism vs socialism and communism.
4) I’m not sure what to do with those who abuse and traffic in human lives. At the moment, it’s not pleasant, and highly unprofessional.
5) Find ways to recognize and reach out to victims, through advocacy groups, using funds raised and allocated for counseling, rehabilitation, and retraining.
Where is the respect of life, if you abuse your children? I would really like to understand better the mentality and culture that lives in slavery like that, and perpetuates it. And then, how to change and eradicate it.
I found the following sites useful:
www.humantrafficking.org (this one has a big index of articles, sites, and posts)
http://www.groundreport.com/Politics/Human-Trafficking-Modern-Day-Slavery_6/2900029 (local VA stories on trafficking)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5201813 “Tracking the Child Sex Trade in Southeast Asia” NPR’s interview with Nicholas Khristof)
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