for sale?

"Young women tricked into coming to England, often by boyfriends, are being sold off in auctions at airport coffee shops as soon as they arrive"  (BBC News)

Maybe you've seen an episode of some crime show where the cops bust into a brothel and rescue foreign women who've been sold into the sex trade.   Or maybe you haven't.  But if you have, like me, it's something that makes only a fleeting impression on you--one of the many flickers of the screen...

Last year, I went to a training conducted by the International Organization for Migration which opened my eyes to the problem of human trafficking in Ukraine.   I can't give you numbers, because the number of women (and men and children) sold into slavery each year are impossible to measure accurately.  Most cases are not reported -- only those of the women who manage to return home.

Probably what struck me the most was the connection, in my mind at least, between the degradation of sex, the relaxed attitude many people have toward pornography and prostitution, and human trafficking.  It's as if most people are shocked by trafficking ("oh, wow, well, yeah, if they don't want to do it, of course it's wrong!") but are not shocked by porn and prostitution.

Wake up, people.