November 12, 2009
Day one of your new job and the nerves of what to wear, how to act and which briefcase to carry have you stressed out to the point of illness. Consider yourself lucky.
As many as 27 million people worldwide have never faced such a situation because they are victims of modern-day slavery. Most are taken into it unknowingly. They think they're on their way to a new career and a better life. Instead of the doors of success swinging open for them, the doors of vehicles filled with human traffickers sentence them to a life that can only be described as hell.
E. Benjamin Skinner, author of the book "A Crime so Monstrous" addressed a full Sears Recital Hall audience Monday about his book, which examines modern-day slavery. Instead of writing as an outsider looking in, he immersed himself in this monstrosity by travelling around the world and talking face-to-face with human traffickers about their "careers."
In Haiti, Skinner learned how one trafficker used the hope for a new life to entice families to hand over their children. Little did these families know that signing away their children wasn't promising them a bright future, it was putting a price on an offspring's life.
"He would go to desperately impoverished families and find those who in many case had eight, nine or 10 children and say he knew they couldn't feed and care for them, and he could give them a better life," Skinner said. "I didn't find mothers or fathers who sold their children; I found parents who made the choice between watching their children slowly starve or die of disease or giving them to a trafficker."
Sharla Musabih, founder of the City of Hope shelter in Dubai, joined Skinner on stage and told the story of a 21-year-old woman who would have given anything for a business suit to be the greatest challenge for her first day on the job.
"She was told she was going to have a job at a hotel, so she came to Dubai, landed and there were two Russian men waiting with a car," she said. "They put her in the car and they took her. Four years she was kept in slavery. During that time customers would be coming and going for her, she had no access to the outside world or anyone. She ended up getting pregnant. She managed to stay alive as well as keep the baby. When the baby was 15 months old, she was able to find a piece of metal around the fence, loosen the bars and escape."
No guards chased her, however. The human traffickers let her go, but not out of the kindness of their hearts. They let her escape because to them, these humans are commodities, not people. If they had chased her, it may have led police to investigate their trafficking or possibly close their businesses. To them, her life, valued at $50, wasn't worth it.
Skinner witnessed firsthand these criminals pricing human beings, most of them still young enough to be considered children. In Haiti he drove up to a barbershop well-known as a hub for human trafficking to be greeted by a man offering him a child for servitude. Skinner had the choice between buying a young child to work in the house, one to be his sexual partner, or for under $100, he could get a two-for-one deal.
"I was negotiating for human life as if I was negotiating for a used stereo in the broad daylight on the street," he said. "The asking price for this child was $100, and the negotiated price within five minutes was $50 U.S."
Throughout his journey into the cold heart of human trafficking, Skinner came face-to-face with multitudes of stories so gruesome they are unbelievable to an outsider. He witnessed a young blonde with physical signs of Down syndrome being raped for under $8 per person. The traffickers covered her face in makeup, but her tears made the mascara run down her face and blood seeped from scratches on her arms.
He met a girl sold to a Nigerian crack dealer who had begun dabbling in the sale of humans because it offered greater profits. She was forced to work on the streets of South Africa, having unprotected sex just eight blocks from the 2010 World Cup soccer stadium. Within a year she had AIDS, tuberculosis and was three months pregnant.
In another inside look Skinner was taken to a hotel in which the fourth floor was an abortion clinic and the fifth floor was a trading hub where girls slept four to a mattress, were raped, and if they resisted, were thrown from the window.
As horrific as these cases are, they are only five of the 27 million worldwide. The fight against human trafficking needs to target the traffickers themselves. Laws against trafficking in countries such as South Africa, which has none, need to be established and enforced, Skinner said. Governments need to be willing to make this issue a priority.
Bringing an end to human trafficking won't be accomplished by one person; everyone must accept a role against this monstrous crime. Skinner challenged the audience and the entire UD community to an easy task.
http://www.flyernews.com/articles/volume/57/issue/16/id/5334/category/news
"Simply tell others," he said. "I hope you all get engaged some way, and one way is to commit to telling 10 people about modern-day slavery."
Or you can get involved even more actively. For ideas, contact Sharla Musabih at UnitedHealthSharla@gmail.com.
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