Ms. Rita 的生活大小事

前一陣子看完孟買女帝後，對萱兒衝擊滿大的，根深蒂固的男尊女卑觀念造就無數悲劇，至今仍不斷發生。雖然男性也可能是人口販賣的受害者，不過女性受害者的比例高達四分之三。資本主義社會下，女性地位獲得提升和改善，但這並沒有減少人口販賣問題，其背後的龐大利益促使此現代奴役制度成為全球第二大規模的非法貿易，嚴重侵犯人類基本人權，危害社會秩序，我們每一個人都不該坐視不理。

Why Girls Are Being Sold and Bought?

Right now, hundreds of thousands of people are trafficked in every single country in the world, including yours, in which women make up three fourth of its victims. This shameful business primarily takes form of modern slavery and sexual exploitation, devastating lives of millions of people and making organized crime rich. Poverty, pleasure and slavery are key factors contribute to the supply of trafficking women. 

Large numbers of women continuing to be trafficked and sexually exploited is a serious social problem rooted in poverty. Reports show many people from poor areas are traded on the international market every year, approximately 80% of these victims are females, some forced into the sex industry and others an unknown life. As millions of women and girls are subjected to an unfamiliar life they face the harshest and worst conditions imaginable. Some tortured, while others raped and forced into an unwanted career of performing sexual acts. Poor women are trafficked and exploited to drive the world’s fastest growing industry.

Girls are treated as commodities to fit sexual desires, making the trade of female bodies the fastest growing form of commerce. Women are objectified and forced into pleasuring buyers. For example, men have purchased females, chained them up and repeatedly raped them till they were pregnant. The trade in human beings is highly lucrative, worth $150 billion annually—$99 billion from sex trafficking. This illicit business encourages purchasers to believe that females are their property. In this process, the objectified people are considered as mindless entities that can be sold and bought for profit. As girls are regarded as instruments for the use and pleasure of others, demand for prostitution expands rapidly, besides, numerous females become victims of forced labor.

Roughly ten percent of all trafficked women are compelled to work as prostitutes, many are victims coerced to do work against their will under threat of punishment. Global statistics show 40 million people are in modern slavery with approximately 24.9 million forced into various jobs and suffer from numerous types of abuse when not compliant and another 4.8 million people are sexually exploited. Research has concluded that both male and females involved in this illegal scheme not only suffer from mental, physical and sexual abuse, but do so without people realizing what is going on. On the surface, it looks like a normal job, but workers are actually being controlled and isolated from the outside world by buyers.

Human trafficking is a complicated and multifaceted crime, severely violating rights of people and must not be tolerated. All nations need to continue enhancing the capacity of law enforcement in a way that will empower victims; prevent more of these crimes from occurring; better defend those who are most vulnerable to trafficking; prosecute perpetrators for their heinous wrongdoing; and establish partnerships domestically and internationally to maximize the impact of efforts. It is also the responsibility of ordinary people to combat this crime by heightening the alertness of it and enhancing awareness of the plight of victims. All have a role to play to eradicate this illegitimate business and promote the overall well-being of communities and society.