Since we started reading the novel, I've been asking friends and family if they've heard of Somaly Mam. Most of them don't even recognize it as a name when I ask and literally no one I've asked has heard of her. Even though I had never heard of her before the class, it still upsets me that no one else has either. In class we were getting worked up because it seems that our government, media, and society has covered up sex trafficking in the United States and even in other countries- so I started to think about why this issue is ignored by so many people.
The fact that Americans think that child sex trafficking does not exist on our land is just ignorant, and this ignorance is what is letting it continue. Once we recognize something this terrible is real, it will become easier to fix. Ignoring an issue does not make it go away.
I also read online that most sex-trafficked youths are from "crack houses" where they were raised around drugs and parents or guardians who physically or sexually abused them. To the children, life with a pimp sounds better than a life with people who were supposed to love them. I think that these situations could be avoided if more people recognized when children come from these kinds of homes (people like teachers, neighbors, or relatives), or if CPS decided to really crack down on certain families. So, young girls lives in prostitution could be avoided from the very start if we were less afraid to admit the dangers that are around us.
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