Eyes

I realize that the eyes that I view Las Vegas with are probably different than most. When I walk through the casinos now, I see the girls working and I wonder what their lives are like. I wonder if they are out on their own volition or if they are one of the women and children forced into modern slavery. I work events for the trade shows that come to town with a pit in my stomach knowing that many of the men in the room will buy a young girl when the business day is done. I see cab drivers and valets and I wonder if they are the ones taking a cut off the backs of girls forced into prostitution. When I drive down the 15, I look at all the casino lights and I wonder how many girls at that moment are in those hotel rooms living a life they never wanted or imagined. I wonder how many of them there are.

Every night driving home from work, I look at the panoramic view of the city outside my window and I ask myself: how do I make people care? How do I unite, educate and mobilize a group of citizens to action? How do we stop sex trafficking in Las Vegas?

Somaly

Somaly Mam embodies the word survivor. As a Cambodian girl, she lived through the years of civil war and genocide at the hands of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. She became a slave to an older man that raped and abused her for several years and sold her to a brothel at the age of 12. For years, she was brutally raped and tortured daily by the johns and the brothel owners. She was forced to watch her best friend being murdered. Thousands of Cambodian girls know this life.

What makes Somaly different is that she escaped. What makes Somaly beautiful is that she has pledged her life to rescuing and rehabilitating these girls. Girls just like her. She began AFESIP-Action For Women In Distressing Situations (name was first in French) and has rescued over 4,000 girls-girls as young as three years old. Her life and family are constantly threatened for the work she does, but she marches on. Her own 14 year-old daughter was kidnapped, tortured and raped by the traffickers she works to fight.

In the last 10 years she has been recognized internationally for her efforts and in 2007 started the Somaly Mam Foundation stateside to help fund her efforts. She gives these girls a chance for life again. Healing from this type of abuse is a long road but Somaly gives them food, shelter, love, acceptance, understanding and education to move on.

I hope to meet her one day so I can give her a hug and tell her how beautiful I think she is.
I read her moving memoir a few years ago, so it is available for loan from me or you can order it here.

Here are Somaly and her girls. Listen to their stories. They deserve to be heard.

Footprint

As consumers, we rarely think about the long road our products have traveled to get to the shelf. When we shop we are looking for a good deal, the right color, the most convenient choice. As modern day abolitionists we have to look at our responsibility in the products we demand.



The Story Behind the Barcode from Not For Sale on Vimeo.


The Slavery Footprint website was created to allow consumers to get a real look at how slavery has touched the things we own. It takes you through a short, interactive (and kind of fun) questionnaire and calculates your individual slavery footprint. At the end it gives you an option to send a prewritten e-letter to the companies you purchase from the most (and they have just about everything) to let them know you like their products but you care about their sourcing and supply chain.

I challenge you to calculate your slavery footprint and send a letter to 3 of the places you shop the most.

Calculate your slavery footprint

Whitney Elementary

Prevention of human trafficking is just as important as providing end services for victims. My father recently sent me a video, sharing the story of principal Sherrie Gahn, of Whitney Elementary in east Las Vegas. She discovered that close to 85 percent of her students were homeless. Some of the children were stealing ketchup packets to get them through the weekend. This was unacceptable to her and she has since started a food pantry to ensure that no child at her school ever goes hungry. She steps even further:

"I told the parents that I would give them whatever they need," Gahn says. "All I need them to do is give me their children and let me teach them. In turn, I will give you food and clothes and we will take them to the eye doctor. I will pay your rent, pay your utilities, but keep your child here."  

As a result, attendance has increased, test scores have doubled and most importantly, the children and their families have hope. She tells all her students "get through junior high, get through high school and if you don't have money for college, come back and see me and I will make sure you can go to college." Principal Gahn may not even realize it but she is preventing human trafficking. She is providing her students with accomplishment, self-esteem, and a safe place, which all help to decrease their future vulnerability. Her generous heart is inspiring.  

Click here for the full story. 

American Escort

I should really be studying for organic chemistry right now, but can’t get my mind to stop running. I just finished watching a special on the National Geographic Channel, Sex For Sale: American Escort, that features my friend, Det.Chris Baughman, of the Las Vegas vice unit. His quote when asked about the biggest misconception of the escort business and prostitution.

“"The biggest misconception...the idea that the phone rings and that there is some free-spirited woman on the other end in her high-rise. We have never seen that."

Check your local listings or Hulu to watch the full episode but here is a clip:

Purpose

In the fall of 2010, a fire was lit inside of me. When I learned from a news special, that there were women being exploited through sex trafficking, I was in disbelief. I was angry. But, more than anything, I was curious and from that day I have been unable to look away. 

Through research, networking and activism I have learned that human trafficking, or slavery, in our world today is much more than a few women in a massage parlor. Slavery touches everything we own. The clothes on our backs, the homes we live in, the makeup we put on our faces, the phones we use, the diamonds we wear, the food we eat. It's in every country, in every corner of the world. In fact, it's in our own backyard. I have learned that I have benefited from someone else's suffering. For me, that knowledge has been a huge burden to bear but, not even close to the burden that some 27 million men, women and children carry every day.

I want to be a part of the solution. I want to be a voice for those that have none. I don't know if anyone will even listen but, this blog, I hope, will be a way to channel my negative feelings into something positive. Maybe to educate others or just keep myself from spontaneous combustion from my own emotions of sadness and anger about the way humans exploit each other. We abolished slavery once. Let's do it again.

With that, I close with one of my favorite quotes from William Wilberforce, the British politician and abolitionist,
           
"You may choose to look the other way, but you can never again say that you did not know."