World Day Against Trafficking in Persons
According to an article on WebMD, recent research shows that a baby tends to develop object permanence around four to five months of age. Object permanence is when a baby realizes that when an object is taken away it still exists. The contrast to this is the mindset that if something isn’t seen it doesn’t exist. Unfortunately, this seems to be the approach that the media in this country takes with human trafficking. And if I’m brutally honest, the same approach most Americans take. If not immediately seen, it doesn’t exist so why worry about it?
A quick search on the AP newswire for stories about human trafficking revealed that the most recent story on human trafficking they carried was on June 25, 2022. Thirty-four days ago. It’s about a MS-13 gang member convicted of trafficking a thirteen-year-old girl. The first story is about Puerto Rico’s largest pot house. After the MS-13 gang member story we see a dog helping to arrest a pedophile, two Greeks killed in a stolen car carrying immigrants, Mexican megachurch leader pleading guilty to sexual abuse, an Egyptian getting prison time for sexually assaulting minor girls, another article on smuggling immigrants, and finally to another story about human trafficking that was published April 19, 2022. Apparently, we’ve solved this problem. Not much to report on. Not!
The trafficking of persons is a worldwide epidemic that gets short shrift in the mainstream press. Today is World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. The point of this day is to bring awareness to the issue of human trafficking around the world. Unfortunately, as far as mainstream society goes, it takes special designated days like this to raise the awareness (the other one was January 11). The rest of the time, most people tend to exhibit a lack of object permanence and for them the buying and selling of human beings, mostly for sexual exploitation, doesn’t exist.
The website nationaltoday.com gives a brief history of World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. You can read it at this link. This article talks about The United Nations Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, which was adopted in 1949. There are 193 member countries (or states as they are called) in the United Nations. To date, only sixty-six of them have ratified the convention. Fortunately, the United States is one of them. Apparently, there are countries that don’t want to criminalize prostitution. I think it shows the basic depravity that exists in this world that so many people are okay with prostitution, even though over ninety percent of prostitutes are in the life against their will.
I realize we all have many things occupying our minds and a lot of things we must deal with. Human trafficking probably isn’t the foremost and hopefully it’s not something you have to deal with. But, please today, give it some thought. And if you feel this is a problem that needs to be eradicated, visit one of the many organizations doing something to help stop human trafficking and see how you can help. You can find a list of some of them in this blog of mine.
Let’s get rid of this heinous travesty and blight on our society.
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