The Horror of Human Trafficking: Facing the Truth about Sexual Slavery

From Contributing Blogger, Dr. Ana Nogales

Slavery is a thing of the past, a subject we studied in school. It existed long ago before the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation put an end to it in this country.

That’s what I always assumed, but in the last several years I have discovered that my assumption was tragically wrong. Human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world and one of our most urgent human rights issues.

It is occurring not only in many countries throughout the world, but right here in the United States, in our towns and communities. And yet, most people are totally unaware of the fact that in the twenty-first century, human beings are forced into sexual slavery so that others may profit.

It wasn’t until I was asked to speak about human trafficking that I realized I knew nothing about it. I turned down the speaking engagement; but soon thereafter, I had a nightmare in which my daughter and I were sold into slavery, and it hit me that this could happen to me, to my daughters or granddaughters, or to any other woman. I began to learn more about the subject, and the more I learned the more horrified I became.

I started treating victims of human trafficking in my practice, hearing their anguished stories about the hell they had gone through. Victims of sexual slavery are forced into prostitution, escort services, online pornography, and strip clubs. They live in constant panic, threatened with punishment if they attempt to escape, often tortured if they try.

The plight of these victims may seem like something out of a frightening movie. But while some may think that the abduction of teenage girls (and boys) who are forced into prostitution occurs only in films like the 2008 movie, Taken!, human slavery is not a fiction. It is far too real.

One of the reasons the general public doesn’t hear the stories that I heard in my office is that victims are often too afraid of retaliation by traffickers. But their voices are beginning to be heard.

The voices of the many terrorized clients whom I treated—and the urgency of this issue—compelled me to write a play, called Don’t Call Me Baby. It portrays the life of a sexual slavery victim, how she tries to keep her past a secret, and how her secret impacts her marriage and her community.

This is a story that many would rather not hear about, because it is terribly disturbing to think that such crimes are going on around us, in our so-called civilized society. But human trafficking is our modern-day slave trade. Many of these victims are Latinas from Mexico and Central America who were promised jobs in the U.S. only to be held captive by those in the sexual slave trade business.

Am I exaggerating by calling it a “slave trade”? Unfortunately, I am not. Dr. Laura Lederer, former State Department Advisor on Human Trafficking and Vice President of Global Centurion, an organization designed to fight world slavery, has stated that, “Over the last 10 years, the numbers of women and children [who] have been trafficked have multiplied so that they are now on par with estimates of the numbers of Africans who were enslaved in the 16th and 17th centuries.”

Over the past decade, the trafficking of human beings has reached epidemic proportions, with 1.2 million children becoming new victims of human trafficking every year. In the U.S., the average victim of abduction is an 11-year-old girl.

Human trafficking is a horrific crime that is being committed daily. It would be a moral crime to keep it a secret. If you want to learn more about human trafficking, please visit my website for information and links:  www.drnogales.com.

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Note from Aurelia: This is the final weekend that Don’t Call Me Baby, the play written by Dr. Ana Nogales on this subject, has its run at Casa 101 Theater in Los Angeles. If you haven’t yet seen the production, learn more and get your tickets at: http://www.casa0101.org/ FYI: I’ll be there Saturday night, so let me know if you’re planning to attend that show!

Can This Be Love?

Both perpetrators and victims often justify domestic violence in the name of love.

This is the month of Valentine’s Day, when we celebrate love and romance—and when our expectations of love can sometimes leave us gravely disappointed.

There are those who may be suffering because they’re not in a relationship and wish that they were; there are others who suffer because their relationship is not at all what they expected or wished for.

And then there are those whose toxic relationships only bring pain.

When we enter into a serious relationship with someone, none of us expects to be treated badly. We are attracted to the positive qualities in a potential partner, we feel passionately towards them, we often ignore or fail to see any negative attributes, and we fall in love. But there is something else that influences our attraction to a prospective mate: our need to love and be loved.

Each of us longs for a special closeness to one other person. We may be pulled into a relationship by an intense physical attraction, but we also want to be intimately connected to someone who shares our values, who understands us, who treats us with kindness, and who will offer compassion and emotional support.

And don’t we also want someone with whom we can share our dreams for the future, someone we think of as our closest friend? Perhaps these are the things you wanted when you initially got together with your boyfriend or husband.

But is the close connection that you wanted still possible if your partner abuses you? If he verbally, emotionally, or physically hurts you, can you still hope to have a good relationship? For many, this question is not so easy to answer.

I think it may be helpful if you can imagine yourself stirring a pot in your kitchen. Into this pot, you have put all the positive qualities your partner possesses, or once possessed. Perhaps generosity, passion, and a great sense of humor are his positive traits. Maybe it is the way he used to make you feel when you first got together: loved, valued, respected. Now, add into the pot the way he treats you when he gets angry: the violent threats, the disrespectful name-calling and abusive language, the slaps or punches.

Stirring those things into the pot is like stirring poison into an appetizing meal. Even if the ingredients are healthy and delicious to begin with, once the poison has been added, the meal cannot be eaten. The poison—the abuse, the violence, and the hurt—has spoiled everything else in the pot. If you partake of what is now in the pot, it will harm you.

Learning to turn away from an abusive relationship is not always easy. Many survivors of domestic violence have told me that one of the most difficult obstacles to leaving an abusive relationship is confusion over what constitutes abusive behavior.

They say that while it should be simple to tell when you’re being abused, sometimes it’s not. If someone hits you, that’s interpreted by most people as abusive. But what about the love between you and your partner, which you may feel is still there? The shared history, which makes it hard to imagine a future without this person? Or the promises he makes to change his behavior? How do you weigh such factors that seem to modify or cancel out a partner’s violent episodes?

An abusive partner may promise to change or give you reasons to justify the violent or intimidating behavior, and at times those promises and reasons may seem to make sense. Which is why you may need a strong support system, including a counselor who specializes in domestic abuse, to help you draw the line between acceptable and abusive behavior—and to help you make decisions about how to live an abuse-free life.

Domestic abuse can never be part of a good relationship. When fear, intimidation, and cruelty are present in a relationship, can you really call that love?

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Note from Aurelia:  In this month when we get caught up in the “mood,” it is important to recognize that sometimes we can become blind to what’s going on around us.  Let’s work together to support our Latina sisters so that we can all have healthy relationships!

Ringing In the New You

The New Year is an ideal time for new beginnings, reminding us of the unique energy each of us brings to the cycle of life. What makes life so exhilarating is that there is always something new to discover—not only in the world but within ourselves. The ending of one yearly cycle and the beginning of the next offer us the opportunity to review our life, reconsider the choices we’ve made, and chart new paths of self-discovery.  Through introspection and self-assessment, we can look back and appreciate that we are not the same person we were a year ago—or ten years ago.  The millions of experiences we have throughout the year impel us to evolve and grow, so that by year’s end we have become a new person in many ways. Authentically ourselves, yet profoundly changed.

Are you grounded by the essential values that define who you really are—yet committed to change in ways that enhance and deepen your life? I invite you to focus on this invigorating process of self-discovery. Let yourself be amazed by your own journey, by the creativity, struggles, and surprises along the way. Take some time as our new year begins to think about how you came to be the person you are today, an evolving individual with new passions, dreams, and awareness. What made last year’s changes possible? What chances did you take and what efforts did you make in order to pursue a new course that really mattered to you? How did a change of heart or a shift in attitude play a part? What caused you to draw upon new sources of inner strength? And what will you ask of yourself this year as you undertake new challenges?

While we sometimes lose sight of this core truth, it is an enduring one: the most profound changes come from within.  Happy New Year! Happy New You!