Human trafficking has been one of the major social issues that the world has faced and continues to do so since a very long time. Objectifying and abusing the female gender is a global phenomenon. To create awareness and make a realisation of this terrible issue, the law students of the Northeastern University spoke to the advocates for the victims of human trafficking.
Lisa Golbatt Grace (the director of ‘My Life My Choice’, an organisation which works as an aid to young girls who have been victims of human trafficking) says that the real work after completing school leaves a great impact on the victims that they serve. A police detective, Payne-Callender, who spoke at the event explained the difficulty in the process of interrogating these victims. The procedure to deal with these victims is important and difficult as they take time to trust their lawyers, police officers, or social workers who work for them. The trust that needs to be built is shaken by the trauma they face or had faced in their past. The victims of this abuse strongly need someone to support and listen to them. They fear and struggle to share about their lifestyle with others. Many victims also engage themselves in drugs to combat with their stressful life of harassment.
“It is intense and I know they need you,” says Audrey Porter (Assistant Director and Coordinator at Survivor Services at ‘My Life My Choice’) who was victim of trafficking too. She spent years in Boston’s Combat Zone as a stripper and a prostitute. She herself had developed a drug habit in order to live through the streets.
Being picked up or kidnapped from a place and transported to an area where there are people who force you to be a sex worker is a difficult life. It is the ‘voice’ which the victims of this type of life crave for. The voice of their own which they wish to have, to describe the hell that surrounds them. It is the freedom that they long and fight for, which makes them cry and struggle for help.
Akshara Palshetkar
Commentaires