THAT'S MEN:Sex trafficking is modern slavery of the most brutal kind, writes PADRAIG O'MORAIN.
WE ALL know, if only from a glance at the newsstands, that Barack Obama was Time magazine’s Man of the Year.
But Time also picks its most important people of the year and one of these is very important although most of us have not heard of her.
Her name is Somaly Mam and when she was a young girl in Cambodia she was sold into sexual slavery. She was made to work in a brothel with other young girls. They were kept in line through torture and beatings.
She eventually escaped and later established the Somaly Mam Foundation which helps to rescue other victims of this vicious crime.
The foundation also works to raise awareness of the scourge of trafficking.
The term sex trafficking, I should clarify, refers to the practice of forcing women to work as prostitutes, often by tricking them into the belief that they are leaving their home or their country for a normal job.
It is known that women are trafficked into Ireland – legislation on the issue was passed last year.
Irish men visiting brothels may very well be abusing women who are there against their will.
One of Somaly Mam’s helpers is Sina Vann. Journalist Nicholas D Kristof recently wrote about her in The New York Times.
If you go to the website of the Somaly Mam Foundation website at www.somaly.org and click on “news” you will find a link to his article.
It is a shocking article and I urge you to read it. Sina was kidnapped at the age of 13 and taken to Cambodia. She was drugged. She woke up naked and covered in blood beside a white man who had paid to take her virginity.
She was kept in a hotel and sold to male customers. Vicious beatings were inflicted if she did not act seductively enough. No customers meant a beating.
If she resisted she was brought to the basement where water was poured on her and she was given electric shocks. She was also locked in a coffin full of ants. The coffin was so tight she could not move her hands. This could go on for a day or more.
This is not rare. According to Sina, many Cambodian brothels have torture rooms in their basements. The girls’ screams cannot be heard from outside.
She was rescued in a police raid organised by Somaly Mam. Somaly Mam has paid a price for interfering with the sex trade. Kristof notes that to punish her, the brothel owners “kidnapped and brutalised her 14-year-old daughter”.
The daughter of the woman who interpreted for Kristof in his interview with Sina also disappeared.
This is the very heart of darkness. It is modern slavery of the most brutal kind.
According to the Somaly Mam Foundation, two to four million women and children will be sold into prostitution this year. Some will be as young as five. They face a future of rape, torture and forced abortion. Many will die of Aids.
As I mentioned earlier, this isn’t only a problem that happens in faraway countries. Here in Ireland, Ruhama, which works with women involved with prostitution, recently ran a television advertising campaign aimed at men who use the services of women trafficked into the country.
The campaign aimed to highlight the fact that the Criminal Law (Human Trafficking) Act of 2008 criminalises men who use trafficked women.
That we have this legislation in place is a good thing and so is the fact that the Department of Justice gave funding to the Ruhama campaign.
But confusion remains about the rights of victims of traffickers when they are identified, as Ruadhán Mac Cormaic reported in this newspaper in December.
Despite a Government scheme to provide them with 60 days’ respite to recover from their ordeal, they can end up in prison.
Prison may be better than what they have been rescued from but as a response it’s not good enough.
We need to change our treatment of victims – but most of all we need a change in our hearts and a recognition that the trafficking of women for sex is evil and a blight on our society and our world.
- Padraig O'Morain is a counsellor