Photo by Kay ChernushIf you have a chance this week, read this MSNBC article on sex slavery in America. I saw it last week, but I wanted to mention it because it points out some things that a lot of other articles or TV specials don't.
I was at the LA Metro Task Force meeting this summer when they announced that they had captured this woman, Maribel Rodriguez Vasquez, concluding their 2 year investigation on this human trafficking ring in LA. There was much celebration. This ring involved women and girls from Guatemala brought to the MacArthur Park area of LA, where Ruben and Charity and I focused much of our outreach.
In this article it says that many traffickers take their victims to witch doctors to threaten them with curses on them or their families if they tried to escape. Early in our time on the job together, Ruben and Charity and I were in MacArthur Park, passing a Botanica, when Ruben felt a distinct pull to go inside. (Ah, the stories I couldn't tell here while I was working for Salvation Army!!!) I usually don't like to go inside these; there is such a mish-mash of spiritual forces going on inside that it's kind of yucky feeling for me. But, inside most of these little shops you can find a witch doctor, who can pronounce blessings or curses or sell you something to fix almost anything problem. Charity and I had heard of a few of these with actual pr0stitution rings being run out of them. We looked around as Ruben chatted up the woman at the counter for a few minutes.
Ruben has this uncanny ability - I called it an anointing - to disarm people and within minutes have them sharing intimate details of their lives, or in this case human trafficking rings, with him. Perhaps it's his upbringing (I talked about it a little in the middle of this post), or his winsome personality, but as I listened to him casually ask a couple questions about the types of trafficking and exploitation we knew were happening there in the park, the Witch Doctor actually came out of his labyrinth in the back and stood listening.
The conversation was in Spanish, so I whispered translated bits of it to Charity as we stood "browsing" some Virgin Mary candles across the room. In less than five minutes, Ruben had this witch doctor telling him exactly what this article says. There are enormous numbers of victims of trafficking right there in McArthur park, from this prostitution ring to the people pushing ice cream carts. And this man sees a huge percentage of them as they are brought to him for curses or other types of "bindings" to their trafficker. This is common in other countries, we knew, especially where there is animism or other forms of ritualism, but we had just heard first hand that it happened there too.
Anyway...(I always go on and on so much longer than planned!) read the article if you get a chance. I like that it also says that a lot of women work in trafficking rings. I was asked this often, incredulously. It's so common, and they are very successful in recruiting as well, because women tend to trust women more easily. Often these women were recruited and exploited the same way and have moved to a position of authority over other girls, or sometimes it's just the "family business."
1 comment:
It is sad to see that bad stuff like this exists in society. I came from Vietnam and a lot of women and children are being sold as sex slaves to the other Asian countries. Most of the time these people are looking a better job to support their families and are told that they'll make good money in another city or a country and come to find out they have been fooled..
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