Petite with dark angular eyes and a neat bob, she was fiery and bold. While all of the survivors passionately shared intimate pieces of their story, expressed the problematic pieces within social and health services and the legal system, and prescribed their solutions, this one young woman particularly captivated me. Born and trafficked in Los Angeles, California for ten years she was sold into the brothels to earn an income and forced to become a sex slave by her immigrant parents. Now, articulate, healthy, and vivacious, she is a student pursuing her doctorate degree and simultaneously advocating for survivors of human trafficking. She is both simply and complexly, an extraordinary woman. To me, she is extraordinary not so much because she is a well-rounded and ambitious woman obtaining her doctorate degree from a prestigious school despite her horrific past, although this is an admirable achievement for anyone, she is extraordinary because she has literally transformed her tragedy into triumph. She confirms that the capacity for the human spirit to soar is truly boundless. From her own experiences and research, she thoughtfully spoke about critical issues surrounding culture, social and health services. She spoke about the idea of “strict immigrant parents,” in the sense that there is a common perception that immigrant parents tend to be overbearing, more demanding of their children, and culturally believe in a stricter parenting style. However, as she pointed out, these cultural stereotypes reinforce the silence and the confusion to speak up. When she first started meeting with a therapist, the therapist immediately recommended medication. Instead of urging her to talk, yell, cry or ramble, the therapist’s first inclination was to medicate and once again silence her. The therapist’s desire to medicate her was equivalent to the therapist saying “don’t feel, don’t allow yourself to feel fury, instead let me numb you.” TheUSgovernment promotes the “3 P’s paradigm (protection, prosecution, and prevention); instead, this survivor believes in the “3 H’s,” as she refers to them, Health, Healing, and Hope. She said that there must be a more extensive investment in the long-term health of survivors and is directing the first survivor driven community based research project focusing on the health of survivors. She also spoke about not wanting people to elevate her and place her above other survivors in the sense that she is highly educated and exceptionally articulate. For her, survivors of human trafficking are her people and she does not want to be viewed as distinct from them. Encouraging others to smash through their silence, she powerfully says “do not be afraid to seek your freedom.”
My time at the Freedom Network’s Beyond Rhetoric Conference was stirring, dynamic, and purposeful. Benjamin Skinner, influential author, journalist, and advocate began his keynote speech with a simple but powerful reminder: at the end of the day, we have all come together to eradicate slavery, not just raise awareness about it. Instead, we must infuse creating awareness with resolute action and unique human agency. Skinner urged us to leap beyond the casual rhetoric thrown about surrounding human trafficking and modern-day-slavery. He explained that what Americans spend a year on the war to end slavery is tantamount to America’s fighting a war on drugs in one day. Skinner asked us to ask ourselves, “Where do our priorities lie?” Are we more troubled by a 15 –year- old teen being sold marijuana or being sold into a world of slavery? Which rattles us the deepest? At times, we can perhaps become so absorbed with the stringent statistics and numbers, but we must consciously balance and merge the facts with a deep sense of not loosing sight of the human beings that shine through the numbers.
A consistent theme echoed throughout the Conference was the idea of survivors of human trafficking fearing and not trusting our legal system’s most visible and accessible actors; law enforcement officers. Whether this issue swirls around perception, truth, or lies somewhere in the middle, we must combat these detrimental beliefs with direct action.
Far too many human tracking ideologies mostly or only revolve around images of women and sex. While sex trafficking is deplorable and a significant element that needs to be combated within human trafficking, it is only one part of the many evils that lurk within the human trafficking world. Human trafficking is far more diverse and all-encompassing. While sex trafficking often consumes the discourse within the public sphere, we must expand the scope to offer a full and more accurate representation of the many layers of human trafficking. Too often those who are trafficked for the purposes of forced and exploited labor and slavery slip through the fractures of our modern-day conception of the realities of human trafficking. While each form of trafficking is uniquely grotesque, the trafficker’s intent is consistent. With a malicious hunger for greed and power, through psychical, psychological, and emotional dehumanization, the trafficker thirsts to sever the human being from the human spirit, its total destruction, and to achieve unquestioning compliance. But, to this end, they ultimately fail. The human spirit can withstand the vilest of acts.
My first, last, and remaining reflection about the Conference speaks to the wide range of tirelessly passionate social service providers, advocates, academics, law enforcement officers, government officials and the many more who dedicate their lives to vigorously combating human trafficking. I may have expected their exhaustion and disappointments to be readily detectable in their demeanors and expressions, but they were not. Nor could I detect the faintest notion of jadedness. As I admire each and every survivor for starting life anew, continuing to dream and smile, I admire each and every one of these advocates that refuse to become jaded or indifferent, remain loyal to their vision, and always seem to summon a smile.
Rachel Queirolo
Photo Source: http://vsmeets.wordpress.com/tag/erasmus-mundus/
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