The New Slave Trade
When I arrived at the brothel, a girl asked me, “What are you doing here?” I responded, “I come here to work.” “Don’t you know this is where people sell their body?” I couldn’t sleep at night; I kept thinking about what she had said. Selling my body? I didn’t know what selling my body means. I thought… it means cutting off parts of my body and sell them; if it was only that… (Sacrifice)
Here is another innocent voice out of countless others who have been sexually exploited by faceless offenders night and day. According to the Southeast Asian Women Organization, 30 million women and children have been the victim of sexual trafficking since 1970. The exact statistics are difficult to obtain because by its very nature, commercial sexual exploitation involves underground activities that remove the victims from public view, making them seemingly “invisible.” Bound behind the doors of brothels or secret rooms, the women and children are hidden away so that they can be exploited at leisure while protecting the perpetrators’ exposure. The gathering of data can only be conducted when the children “surface” so the data always underestimate the actual scope of the problem. The children “surfaced” when they run away to local homeless shelters, seek hospital treatments for STDs or other maladies, are caught by immigration service or thrown out of their brothel as ‘useless’, or engage in such activities that cause them to be identified and recorded. Adding to this difficulty is the fact that there is little consensus in national law, across disciplines or in data gathering protocols on what constitutes a child or sexual trafficking. Even the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child a...
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... food for me to serve?”
- they beat me up if I didn’t sleep with the men
- 30 million sexual trafficking victims since 1970 according to Southeast Asia
Women Organization
- Global Fund for Women provides money for programs
- ABC Nepal tires to increase women status
- 75% of the population in Nepal is illiterate
- Night clubs and brothels grew up like mushroom. 100,000 GI flocking to Bangkok
to vent their hedonistic desire is like bringing in mass rape to the
country.
- Many sex tours and pagkages in Thailand. In some villages, 70% of the girls
work as prostitutes
- My only day off is when I’m menstruating
- Of the 30,000 Burmese women who were trafficked to work as prostitutes in
Thailand, 50-70% is tested HIV positive by the end of the year. (Women Project
of Asia Watch)
Spartan women were allowed to own and control land. “Yet it does seem to be the case that Spartan daughters received as dowries one-half the amount of their parents’ property that their brothers received as inheritance.” (Pomeroy, Sarah B., Stanley M. Burstein, Walter Donlan, and Jennifer Tolbert Roberts. "Becoming a Spartan Woman." Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. 143. Print) Whereas Athenian women only received one-sixth the amount that their brothers inherited. Spartan women inherited three times as more than their Athenian sisters. Spartan women were also allowed and even encouraged to be educated, whereas the education of Athenian girls was almost nonexistent. In Athens the majority of girls “… received merely a basic training in how to run the household, generally from their mothers. Girls may even have been discouraged from becoming literate in order to keep them “unspoiled.”( Garland, Robert. "The People." Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1998. 103. Print.) Whereas in Sparta the girls were educated at the state’s expense. “Specific lines of development were prescribed for Spartan girls as much as they were for boys. The educational system for girls was also organized according to age classes. (Pomeroy, Sarah B., Stanley M. Burstein, Walter Donlan, and Jennifer Tolbert Roberts. "Becoming a Spartan Woman." Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. 141. Print) Spartan women were also allowed more freedoms in the way that they dressed than their Athenian counterparts. “In earlier times Athenian women wore the peplos, a long heavy woolen garment which revealed little of the figure beneath. In the middle of the sixth century B.C., the peplos was replaced by a lighter and finer garment made of linen called
... pricing organs like vultures, holding a great deal of disrespect to both the deceased as well as their families. In addition, the author fails to remain neutral when discussing the issue, and exaggerates in blaming the government, solely and entirely.
As victim count continues to rise, its difficult to see how such great numbers of men, women and children are bought and sold every year. Trafficking can be found in many forms, including: prostitution, slavery, or forced labor (Harf and Lombardi, 2014). It wasn’t until the 1980’s that international human trafficking became globally noticed. With the lack of government intervention and control in several nations, and the free trade market, slavery once again became a profitable industry (Harf and Lombardi, 2014). As previously mentioned, easier movement across nations borders is one of the outcomes of globalization. It is also what makes human trafficking so easy today. It is estimated that about 20.9 million people are victims across the entire globe (United Nations Publications, 2012); trafficking accounts for 32 billion dollars in generated profit globally (Brewer, n.d). 58 percent of all human trafficking was for the purpose of sexual exploitation, and of this 55-60 percent are women (United Nations Publications,
Spartan spouses lived apart and often only met on rare occasions with the intent to procreate (Blundell). This tactic was used, because they wanted men to always be focused and training to be great soldiers, and not having to worry about family life would lessen the stress for the men (Blundell). Spartan women were given the role of taking care of the household, children, and the families finances (Blundell). However women in Spartan culture, were not brought up to do chores around the house, such as cooking or cleaning (Powell). The reasons behind that was they wanted the girls to focus their education on being physically strong and mentally strong (Powell). The women knew that when they started a household they would be given a helot or slave to take care of the small tasks around the home (Powell). Spartan women’s role in the household, gave them greater independence to be able to perform the activities they wanted to, and gave them the opportunity to be away from the
In a most literal sense men’s bodies were routinely exploited for unrelenting dangerous labor then discarded as the human body began to break. Instead of being reward...
A Eurocentric understanding of the early modern era would the Islamic world. While, the role of the Europeans on a global scale was that the Europeans were becoming involved in world affairs. The Europeans also became involved in the oceanic journeys of European explorers and the European conquest and colonial settlement of the Americas. The Europeans also became involved in the global silver trade.
Archaeological evidence collected in ancient Laconia reveals great insight into the role and status of Spartan women until 371 BC. A compilation of written sources shows the unique treatment of women in Sparta compared with that of other ancient Greek societies. This treatment differs the economic, religious, marital, reproductive and social responsibilities from those of gender archetypes.
The study of past events have been a common practice of mankind since the verbal telling of stories by our ancestors. William Cronon, in his article “Why the Past Matters,” asserts that the remembrance of the past “keeps us in place.” Our individual memories and experiences shape how we act in our daily lives. In addition to influencing us at an individual level, our collective history binds us together as a society. Without knowing where we have been or what we have experienced, it is nearly impossible to judge progress or know which courses of action to pursue. The goal of the historian is to analyze and explain past events, of which they rarely have firsthand memory of, and apply the gained knowledge to make connections with current and future events.
Women in Sparta had freedoms and rights like no other city-state throughout Greece. Spartan women would receive an education and physical training. They were fed properly and could eat whatever they wanted because the credit was given to women for making Spartan men strong due to them being able to have healthy babies since they were treated properly. Not only were Spartan women given a good education and were nourished properly, they were also given rights and freedoms which Athenian women would never have. Spartan women had the right to apply for citizenship at the age of eighteen while women in Athens would never be granted citizenship. Spartan women also had the freedom to wander throughout their city-state unlike women in Athens who were forced to remain inside. In Sparta, women had the right to own property and the right to divorce their husbands without losing their wealth which Athenian women did not have. Also unlike Athenian women, Spartan women would not marry at a very young age. They’d generally marry between the ages of eighteen and twenty. The person they married would often only be a few years older than them. In Athens, women were often forced to marry an older man during their teenage years. Another benefit of being a woman in Ancient Sparta instead of Ancient Athens is that Spartan women were in charge of the household and the cooking and cleaning was not left up to them.
Unlike other Greek city states, women played an integral role in Spartan society as they were the backbone of the Spartan economic system of inheritance and marriage dowry and they were relied upon to fulfill their main responsibility of producing Spartan warrior sons. These principle economic systems affected wealth distribution among Spartan citizens especially among the Spartan elite class. Spartan women led a completely different life than women in most other ancient Greek city states, as they were depended upon to maintain Spartan social systems. In a society where the state is more involved in home life women had freedom of movement and they were permitted to communicate with men who were not their husbands. Women had domestic responsibilities including the maintenance of homes and farms when the men were on campaign, while the typical Greek female responsibilities such as weaving were delegated to slaves. Girls were raised much like Spartan boys as they were made to go through physical training insuring their success in fulfilling their most important role in society, child-bearing. The few primary sources on Sparta and Spartiate women, namely Aristotle, Plutarch, Herodotus and Xenophon were historians who lived after the prominence of ancient Sparta; therefore, the facts regarding the women’s influence in social, economic and political issues must be carefully interpreted and analysed with help from secondary sources.
However, they had many more freedoms in the domestic sphere, as well. Spartan women, unlike their Athenian sisters, were allowed and even encouraged to be seen in public. They participated in sporting events alongside their male counterparts, often in the nude. Unlike in most of Greece, women in Sparta did not marry until they were about eighteen (Hibbison 2), and they often married men who were roughly the same age, usually in their early 20s.The idea was that women who married when they were sexually mature would be able to bear healthier and stronger children. In the event of her husband’s death or a divorce (which a woman could institute), a woman was free to remain single and had no obligation to remarry. It is theorized that Spartan women even had a say in who they married, which would have put them far ahead of their time; however, it is not known for certain if this is true. This theory is mostly based on the fact that Spartan women had so much say in the other aspects of their married lives. Another interesting aspect of Spartan domestic life was the “lending” of wives. Paul Cartledge writes, “Husband[s] might actually ‘lend’ [their wives] to another man for the specific purpose of procreating legitimate offspring—for that other man’s household and lineage. As for the wives in these cases, they are said to have welcomed such an arrangement...since it gave them the chance to manage more than one household” (Cartledge 169). Women were given the chance to become part of another family through this process. Because most marriages in Sparta did not involve any type of emotional or romantic attachment, this was not considered immoral, and women would happily bear children for several men, as it gave her more power and status. It is important to note that Spartan women likely did have a say in this, however, because in most other societies, they would not have. Spartan women had many rights in the domestic
An estimated 20.9 million people are currently being trafficked worldwide (The Polaris Project, 2014). According to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA, reauthorized in 2013), sex trafficking is defined as, “A commercial sex act induced by force, fraud, or coercion, and/or in which the person induced to...
As the Classical World began to emerge, the relation between men and women start to change. During the Greek and Roman Empire, men continuing to be powerful in the society, and were the ones who trained for oncoming battles. As well woman rights were emerging slowly during the period. Women started as a possession of the men, and ended with own rights and choices of profession. The civilization of Greece had two main cities, Sparta and Athens. Men and women in Sparta were strong, they started training together, and at the age of twelve were separate. Then boys were sent to the barracks, were the military training continued, and girls keep with their trained to became worthy of a good male. Spartan women were free, they could ran businesses
One of the greatest responsibilities a woman had in Classical Sparta was giving birth to the Spartan males. Through physical training when a young teen with the Spartan boys, the women needed to be healthy and strong to produce healthy children capable of going through the agoge training. “…By athleticism they made sure that their children would be up to the standard of physical fitness demanded by the Spartan system.” (H.Michell, Sparta). The Spartan mother would prepare the young Spartans prior to the agoge; she would have minimal interaction and supply minimal clothing and
Like the Athenians, women were expected to bear sons. Boys were taken away from their mothers at the age of seven and put under the control of Spartan leaders. The boys were taken to live in military camps and were “subjected to harsh discipline to make them tough and given an education that stressed military training and obedience to authority”. For most of the Spartan men’s lives, they lived in these camps, and trained for battle. Once the males turned 30, they were allowed to vote in an assembly. They were able to marry and live in their own homes, but had to remain in military service until the age of 60. Spartan women, unlike Athenian women had more control and power in society. Woman like men contributed in physical activities because it was “thought that is both parents were strong their children would be more