Trafficking: the Modern Day Slavery

The last session I’ve attended today was about human trafficking worldwide. Although it was a heavy topic, more than 70 people turned up and some of them were just standing at the back due to the room capacity. Apparently, the issue is becoming a global concern and happening at many levels like within developing countries, within the US or cross countries.

There were 2 speakers invited to talk about their thoughts and experience regarding human trafficking. Dr. Susu Thatun who has been involved with the research topic for 10 years and gave a brief lecture about 3 key perspectives(institutional, individual and social culture) on how to exam this problem and interventions we should take. However, I felt like her presentation was too academic, like torturing graduate students about how to do a research paper about human trafficking. For example, she used an amount of formal words like “root cause”, “3 pillars, paradigm shift ” or even “discourse” and “3R approach” where I am not quite sure if it is appropriate to target the audience this way  who are just concerned about this issue but may not understand all those terminologies or methodologies.

Another brilliant speaker Ms Kris wade, in my eyes, is a very brave and legendary woman. She was a victim of woman trafficking and was sold to the US from Mexico when she was 18 years old and forced to become a sex worker. She turned out to be elegant now and told her sad story smoothly, so it is hard to believe this tragedy had ever happened to her. She is now devoting herself to helping the victims of sex trafficking and labor trafficking who are considered as financial commodities. Her first-hand experience is an important source for audience to learn more about this serious social problem. She also pointed out that the drug suppliers/dealers could be main fascinators to contribute to buyers. Those women who were trafficked suffered constantly from being abused and many of them were murdered without being noticed. So it should bring people’s attention to how to prevent this problem and how to protect victims and survivors.