September 25, 2011 - 8:47pm
Few films have stunned me as much as “Not My Life,” a documentary about human trafficking shown recently by Washburn University and the Topeka Center for Peace and Justice.
The film explores the myriad ways criminals exploit other people, primarily children, for their own profit.
The scope and brutality of human trafficking, as well as ways in which I have unwittingly contributed to it, made me squirm more than once.
I was awake well into the night, trying to think of ways I could play some small part in combating it — such as learning more and writing letters to the editor, for starters.
The film spotlights some of the victims of human trafficking, including the fishing boys of Ghana, street beggars of Senegal and girls and women trapped in the brothels of Mumbai, India, and Phnom Penh, Cambodia.The film even includes a segment on a Wichita teenager who was tricked and coerced into prostitution at truck stops in Oklahoma and Kansas.
Among the things I learned:
■Human trafficking is the world’s third largest crime industry, behind only drugs and guns, and it is the fastest growing criminal activity.
■About 80 percent of human trafficking is sex trafficking, the rest is labor.
■In some instances there is a direct relationship to the low price I pay for many of my favorite items and human trafficking.
After the film, Christine Ladner, a Kansas assistant attorney general, talked about some steps the state is taking to combat human trafficking, including recent legislation.
The program was one in a series sponsored by the Topeka Center for Peace and Justice and WU that focuses on the problem of human trafficking.
The next program will include the film, “The Dark Side of Chocolate,” a documentary that investigates the use of child labor in the cocoa fields of West Africa.
The film will be shown in mid October, when many of us will be purchasing chocolate to hand out to our neighborhood children for Halloween.
DUANE JOHNSON, TOPEKA
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