Sometimes I lie awake at night. I have this guilt. This guilt while I and my circle of friends and family can sleep in our comfy beds and indulge in our first world problem worries. "Do I make enough money. Will he call. Will my boss like the last edit. What should I wear. Should I go vegan. How many calories in a glass of wine. I wonder if the teacher really likes Jacob. Who am I? What do I really want." And in the midst of these privilege worries. There is a world of people. Just like me. Just like my circle. A world of SHE's. She might look like me. She might have my nieces eyes. Or my best friends walk. She might have my weird laugh or my nervous habit of biting my nails. She probably at some point had a dream. Or a fantasy. Maybe her dream was simpler than mine. Perhaps it wasn't at all. Maybe it was even bigger than I can ever imagine. But tonight or any other night she won´t be getting lost in her daydream or have the freedom or means to indulge in random mundane first world problems. Tonight her focus is survival. That is if she isn't just praying for it to be all over. Tonight she isn't sleeping at all. She is in some house. In some apartment. In some warehouse. On some boat. In some motel room. In some car. In some slum. In some palace. In some garage. In some strip club. In some hotel. In some cell. In some fancy condo. And she is a slave. And tonight she will be raped. If she is lucky. Only once. But if she is not.... and then tomorrow morning when I wake up and worry about what to wear and complain about the MTA and upset that I have to cancel my date because of work, upset my paycheck wasn't in the mail. Worrying about seeing Mali at lunch and why the reception on my phone isn't working fully. She will still be in some house. In some apartment. In some warehouse. On some boat. In some motel room. In some car. In some slum. In some palace. In some garage. In some strip club. In some hotel. In some cell. In some fancy condo. Hoping and praying that today nothing will happen. That today the door won't open. That today she won't have to be in pain. That maybe she can daydream about this freedom she heard about through the grapvine. That her body will get a chance to heal the soarness, the burn, the rawness the pain. But just then the door opens. And today she will be raped. If she is lucky only once. But if she is not....
There are more slaves in the world today than ever before in History. Fear, Corruption and the hidden nature of modern day slavery makes it impossible to truly understand the enormity of the issue. An estimate 27 million people around the world are victims of human trafficking.
And every 30 seconds. EVERY 30 SECONDS another person becomes a silent victim. Sex trafficking can be a life sentence of no life but violence, torture and rape.
It's a topic I am consumed with. Here is a rough tease of my campaign 'Make it Personal'
More to come. Half the Sky or Human Trafficking around the world/Hidden in plain sight are great reads. I just like to think we can be better at being human beings than we are being.